TECHknitting

Sweater shoulders: transform stair steps to short rows and radically improve shoulder shaping

2012-01-23T02:00:00.041-06:00

4 illustrations, click any illustration to enlarge
Sometimes, a sweater pattern will have you cast off your sweater shoulders in "stair steps." For a sweater worked in stockinette stitch, the directions might look something like this:

16 sts on needle. Purl to outer edge of shoulder. Turn work. Knit side facing
Using ordinary chain bind off, bind off 5 sts. Knit remaining 11 sts. Turn work.
Purl 11 sts. Turn work
Bind off 5 sts. Knit remaining 6 sts. Turn work.
Purl 6 sts. Turn work.
Bind off remaining 6 stitches. Shoulder bind off completed.

In real life, these directions are going to get you the fabric illustrated below, with the bind off shown in DARK GREEN.

Stair-step shoulders (bind off in dark green)

As you can see, this method of bind off creates "stair steps" at the top of the shoulder. When you come to connect the shoulders to one another at the sweater top, this jagged fabric is difficult to sew up nicely.

How about if we use short rows instead? Instead of that jagged edge, we'll make a lovely smooth shoulder top--a top which will be a pleasure to sew up when the time comes.

Before we begin, if you're a little rusty on short rows, you might wish to consider reviewing these illustrated posts:

The particular kind of short rows we are going to use for the shoulders are a mash up of ordinary wrap-and-turn short rows and Japanese short rows--we'll steal the wrapping and turning from the former and the slip stitching from the latter.

If all this sounds WAY complicated, hang on!! This really is far easier than it sounds so far, I promise! Even if short rows seem scary, it'll all come clear when we take this step by step. (You might even want to cast on a 16 st swatch and follow along.)

Step 1. 16 sts on needle. Knit to within 5 sts of outer edge of shoulder. You will now have 5 sts on your left needle and 11 on your right.
Step 2. slip the stitch on the tip of the left needle (shown in PURPLE below) onto right needle. (Slip this and all other slipped stitches "purlwise," which means slip the stitch from one needle to the other without changing the stitch mount--the RIGHT arm of the stitch should remain the forward arm.) Draw running yarn forward, slip purple st back onto left needle, draw running yarn to back again. The running yarn has been turned into a "wrap" around the purple stitch. The wrap is shown in RED, below. Continuing to hold the running yarn in the back, slip the st on the tip of the right needle (shown in ORANGE, below) to the tip of the left needle. You now have 6 sts on the left needle, and 10 sts on the right needle, as shown below.

Wrap the purple stitch with the red running yarn as described
above and then slip the orange stitch

Here is a closeup of the wrap and slip detail.

Close up

Turn work, purl the remaining 10 sts.
Turn work again and knit 6 sts.
Repeat step 2, except that when you finish wrapping the purple st and slipping the orange stitch, this time, you will have 11 sts on the left needle and 5 on the right.
Turn work and purl these 5 stitches.
You will now have all 16 sts on one needle and you'll end up on the neck edge of the shoulder.
You will now knit across the entire shoulder top from neck edge to outside edge, all 16 sts, as shown by the DARK GREEN stitches below. As you come to each wrap, fish around with your needles and "unwrap" the red wrap from around the neck of the purple stitch, placing the wrap on the tip of the left needle. Then, k2tog the red wrap together with the purple st. The TURQUOISE stitches along the top row in the below illustration show where these two were knit together.

In real life, these directions would get you the fabric below. If you compare the final row (DARK GREEN) to the bind off in the first illustration above, you can see that the short row method yields a single smooth descent along the shoulder line: the jagged steps have been eliminated.

Stair steps eliminated via short rows

You can now attach this shoulder to its mate by a three needle bind off, or you could bind it off via ordinary chain bind off on the next row, then sew the shoulders shut.

PS: Geek note: If you intend to bind off anyway, you could just as well bind off the DARK GREEN stitches the last row. In other words, that last row could have been worked as an ordinary chain bind off as it was made, instead of working this row and then working the bind off on the following row.

Good knitting, TK

Fixing a run in garter or seed stitch

2012-01-15T06:00:00.281-06:00

If you get a run in garter or seed stitch, it is easy to fix, as long as you keep your wits about you. (And if you already know how to do this, scroll to the bottom of this post for two shortcuts.)

Garter stitch, seed stitch
Garter stitch and seed stitch don't look much alike. Yet if you go up a column in either fabric, you'll discover that column-wise, both have the same identical structure: a stack of alternating knits and purls.

Row-wise, the fabrics differ--in garter stitch, every stitch along a row is the same, while in seed stitch, the rows alternate just like the columns: alternating knits and purls.

The upshot of this is that, although we have to establish the foundation stitch of any run-out column opposite-wise in each fabric, yet once we get started, we can fix single-column runs in each fabric by the exact same method, since column-wise they are identical.

Establishing the foundation stitch
Before we get started on the actual process, there is going to be a LOT of confusion if we lose sight of a home-truth about knitting:

a loop waiting to be worked is neither a purl nor a knit.

That's right. A loop just sitting there has the capacity to be either a knit OR a purl. It is not until a second loop is DRAWN THROUGH IT on the following row that the loop becomes transformed--frozen into position as a knit or a purl stitch. (If this confuses you, you might want to consider reviewing this post.)

A loop sitting at the bottom of a run-out ladder shares this characteristic. It is neither a knit nor a purl...yet! It is not until we draw the next ladder rung through that bottom loop that the loop becomes transformed into a knit or a purl stitch.

Another important thing to remember about stitches is that knit stitches have their heads popped onto the BACK of the fabric, while purl stitches have their heads popped onto the FRONT of the fabric. Stated otherwise, it does not really matter what lays at the foot of any loop. It is the top of the loop--its head, which determines whether a stitch is a knit or a purl. (For further information about head orientation, consider reviewing this post.)

The consequence of all this is as follows. The first step for correcting a run in garter stitch or in seed stitch is examine the two stitches immediately neighboring the lowest loop of the run out column, in order to determine whether the lowest loop ought to be transformed into a knit or a purl. As this relates to the diagram, you can see that we are working in garter stitch, because in garter stitch, each stitch along any one row is the same as its neighbors. The orange loop sitting forlornly at the bottom of the ladder has two immediate neighbors which are knit stitches (dark green), and this lets us know that it, too, must be transformed into that same kind of stitch--a knit stitch.

(By contrast, if the fabric were seed stitch, the fact of two dark-green neighbor knit stitches would mean that the orange loop ought to be transformed into the opposite of its neighbors--a purl stitch.)

This is a garter stitch fabric--every stitch in any row
is the same type as its neighboring stitches. Therefore,
the orange loop at the bottom of the run must be
transformed into a knit stitch, so that it is same type
of stitch as its two neighboring stitches
(dark green), which are knit stitches. (You can tell
that the two dark green stitches are knit stitches
by the fact that their heads are popped onto the
back of the knit fabric.)

Here's how to transform a loop into a knit stitch
Slip the stitches on the knitting needles along, transferring them from one needle to another as necessary until the run is between the needles, as shown in the diagram. To transform a loop into a knit stitch, hold a crochet hook on the FRONT of the fabric. Insert the hook into the lowest loop (orange) from front to back, as shown. Next, reach up and hook the next rung of the ladder (purple). Draw the purple rung through the orange loop. Given the direction of insertion, the act of drawing through the purple ladder will pop the head of the orange loop to the back of the fabric, leaving the arms aligned on the front in a sort of a little "v." In this way, you have transformed the bottom loop of the ladder into a knit. At the same time, the rung doing the transforming--the purple rung which was drawn through--becomes the loop at the bottom of the run, waiting in its turn to be transformed from a loop to a stitch.

Insert crochet hook into the orange loop from
the front, then draw through the next rung on the
ladder (purple). This not only transforms the orange
loop into a knit stitch, but also turns the purple
rung into the next bottom loop, waiting in its
turn to be transformed from a loop into a stitch

Here's how to work a loop as a purl stitch
In our garter stitch diagram, we started with an orange loop which had to be worked as a knit. As stated previously, garter and seed stitch runs are corrected by creating an alternating stack of knit and purl stitches. Therefore, we know that the next loop after a knit stitch has to be transformed into a purl stitch. So, the next step is to draw through the following rung (brown) in the opposite direction--to work it from back to front, thus transforming the purple loop into a purl.

We can double-check that this is correct because in a garter stitch fabric, the bottom loop is to be transformed into the same sort of stitch as its two immediate neighbors, and these stitches (now colored pink) are both purls--their heads are popped to the front of the fabric. Therefore, the brown rung must be drawn through the purple loop in such a manner as to transform the purple loop into a purl stitch.

(Again, if the fabric were seed stitch, the fact of two pink neighbor purl stitches would mean that the purple loop ought to be transformed into the opposite of its neighbor stitches--a knit stitch.)

Specifically, whenever you need to work a loop at the bottom of a ladder as a purl, here's how: Insert the crochet hook from the back of the fabric, through the purple loop, from back to front, as shown. Then, draw through the next ladder loop (brown), working from back to front.

Insert crochet hook into the purple loop from
the back, then draw through the next rung on the
ladder (brown). This not only transforms the purple
loop into a purl stitch, but also turns the brown
rung into the next bottom loop, waiting in its
turn to be transformed from a loop into a stitch

Summary:
To transform a loop into a KNIT stitch, insert the crochet hook into the loop from the FRONT and draw through the next ladder rung from that position. To transform a loop into a PURL stitch, insert the crochet hook from the BACK and draw through the next ladder rung from that position (but keep reading down to shortcuts for an easier way!)

Repeating the process
Keep repeating this process, moving the crochet hook to opposite faces of the fabric and drawing the next ladder rung through the loop below. To get the crochet hook to the other side of the fabric, you've actually got to remove it from the loop you just drew up, pinch that loop with your fingers, put the hook on the other side of the fabric, and insert the hook into the loop you are pinching.

Once you have drawn up each new loop to alternate faces of the knit fabric, you will have created a column composed of a stack of alternating knits and purls, as shown in the last diagram, below.

final result: an alternating stack of knits and purls

Shortcuts
I have illustrated the process in the conceptually simplest manner, showing the work as if it were always to be seen from the same side of the fabric. This is fine for a dropped stitch or two, and this orientation makes it easy to understand, I think. However, here are two shortcuts which make this process easier to work if you should happen to have more than a stitch or two to fix.

Shortcut 1--fabric flipping
Once you have gone through the pinching-neede-switching-and-inserting process two or three times, you will see that it really annoying to have to insert the crochet hook from the back. Luckily, as we all know, the opposite of a purl is a knit. Therefore, when it appears from the front of the fabric that the next stitch ought to be a purl, you will find that it is much easier to flip the fabric around front-to-back instead, so that you are always inserting the crochet hook into the bottom loop from the front, thus transforming the loop into a knit stitch. The back of the knit is a purl, so all is well.

Shortcut 2--double ended hook or double-ended latch hook
After you have worked a few runs as for shortcut 1, you will discover that even though flipping so that you can always insert from the front is easier than trying to insert from the back, it is still quite annoying to have to continuously remove the crochet hook, only to have to insert it again once the fabric has been flipped. It is at this point that you might wish to consider buying a double-ended crochet hook or a special kind of double-ended latch hook tool called a "seed-stitcher."

With a double-ended hook, you can do all the latching-up from the front. This is done by sliding the needle from one end to the other, using opposite hooks alternately, for each stitch to be made. Although this sounds very complicated, it isn't--once you get hold of a double ended hook you will see how much easier this is. Here is a link to a video showing how to use a certain kind of double ended crochet hook called a "fix-a-stitch" and here is another link to a you-tube video by the makers of the "seed-stitcher" double ended latch hook tool, also showing how to do this. The second video shows machine knitting being latched up, but the same technique is used for hand knitting. At 24 seconds, you can see the seed stitcher being pushed through to its other end to make a purl stitch after a knit stitch, at 35 seconds, you can see the seed stitcher being pulled forward to make a knit stitch after a purl stitch. Both the double-ended crochet hook and the double-ended latch hook work in the same manner, although you might find the latch hook easier to use.

Good knitting, TK
PS: Special thanks to Joan Schrouder who first clued me in to the seed stitcher tool.
You have been reading TECHknitting blog on fixing a run in garter stitch, fixing a run in seed stitch

Sharps and flats: sewing needles, part 2

2011-12-30T09:18:00.003-06:00

Way back in May 2007, TECHknitting had a post on the two types of sewing needles: blunt pointed and sharp pointed. The point (ha!) was that each kind has a different use. Blunt points are best for such tasks as weaving, where you don't want to split the plies of the underlying yarn. Sharp points work well for splitting plies, good for such jobs as skimming in ends.

Although each type is good at what it does, the truth is that it can get rather tiresome having to switch back and forth, for example: first threading to a blunt point for weaving in an end, then rethreading to a sharp point to skim in the last nub of the tail. The temptation is to skimp and just muddle through with whatever kind of needle comes to hand first.

Recently, Patti from Canada was reviewing this old post. In response, she sent her own little trick to avoid needle switching. Her e-mail reads as follows:

> If you need to use both kinds of needles,
> it is easiest to thread onto a sharp needle, and
> then just push it wrong way around
> (eye first instead of point first)
> in those places you need the blunt point.
> Just be careful not to stab yourself.

What a swell idea! No more muddling, no more skimping!

Weaving with a sharp needle held wrong way around

Close up

No need to rethread onto a sharp point
when the time comes for skimming in

Using a sharp needle backwards: really very clever! (And I will try not to stab myself.) Thanks, Patti.

--TK

Pattern beta/test knitters

2011-12-29T11:45:00.001-06:00

Dear readers: you are amazing. Wow. There have already been more responses than I can keep up with--so thank you very much. I'll leave this up for reference, but with the text crossed out. Hopefully, the pattern will soon be available, if the test knits work out.

Thanks again, and happy, happy new year. TK

Lately, more patterns have been generated here at chezTECH. The latest of these is a ladies' cap called "Spice Road." It's a pretty neat pattern: it's knit flat in stockinette, all in one piece, utilizing a lot of short rows. Then, the fabric is folded, welted, seamed.

I named it that after the fabled spice road of old, because it has three design features found in central Asian headgear: a wide smooth expanse over the brow, a little brim which runs around the top, and a turban-like fold in the back.

One problem is making sure TECHknitting patterns are correct. Lately, I've been doing all the test knitting myself. Yet, this is not a great idea. Because I know how the item ought to come out, I'm afraid I'd gloss over any error in the pattern. Spice Road is, I think, ready for release, but I wonder if any my lovely TECHknitting readers out there would consider test knitting it first? The pattern is designed for intermediate knitters and above (but a bold advanced beginner could probably manage).

Here's the deal: It would be great to have a three (or so) test knits. So, to those volunteers, I'll send the pattern as a PDF. You buy the yarn or use up stash, and knit the cap by January 31, 2012. Once you've gotten back to me with your comments, and once the cap is posted as a project on your Ravelry page, I will send you a $25.00 honorarium. This will hopefully cover your yarn cost.

$25.00 for test knitting isn't a lot, and in an ideal world, it would be more, for sure. However, in this non-ideal world, any money from the sale of the Spice Road cap pattern over and above the honoraria is instead slated to go towards snowpants, socks, boots and science club funds, all of which the local schools around here are finding in precious short supply.

Tech details: a single 100 gram skein of worsted weight yarn will suffice. Common yarns in this weight include Cascade 220, Wool of the Andes, Northampton Valley Yarn, Pattons Classic wool, and the like. The cap would best be made in wool--synthetics, especially "soft" synthetics, may not have the body required for the details of this cap to work out. The gauge is 5 st/in, 7 rows/in, pretty standard for this weight of yarn. A circular needle 22" or longer is required for knitting stockinette back and forth at the required gauge (there are possibly too many sts on the needle at one time for a single-pointed needle to work). A 16" circular needle a size smaller is also required, as is a crochet hook of size proportional to the yarn. A steam iron will be handy for blocking.

Bottom line: if you are an intermediate knitter or above, if you are interested in being a test knitter for Spice Road ladies' cap, and if you can can afford to do so under these terms, write to me at the e-mail address under "profile," at the top of the right side bar. We'll work out the details to our mutual satisfaction, and then I'll send you the PDF pattern. And for everyone else, if the test knits work out, the pattern for the Spice Road cap will be for sale: this winter, hopefully.

~~Thanks for your consideration,~~
~~Best, TK~~

Three needle bind off (for real, this time)

2011-12-27T13:49:00.003-06:00

A reader wrote to ask about the three needle bind-off. (For the first TECHknitting 3-needle post published, I skipped a brain gear and got the illustrations actually backwards. In this post, the error has--hopefully, anyhow--been eliminated.)

The three needle bind-off is a variant of the chain bind off but with two major differences:

instead of drawing the running yarn through the one live stitch, you instead hold two pieces of fabric together and draw the running yarn through two live stitches: one from each fabric.
working in this manner not only binds off both fabrics, but also connects them, thus creating a seam.

Here's how it's done:

Each fabric is worked to the very top, then held with the live loops of the last row on its own needle. Next, the fabrics are held together, front-to-front. This orientation puts the seam you are creating on the inside of the garment.

In the below illustration, both fabrics to be connected are knit in stockinette, and the knit side of the fabric is meant to be seen when the garment is worn. Accordingly, both fabrics are being held with their purl sides facing outwards, which means that their knit sides are rubbing against one another as the fabrics are being held front-to-front.

From the position of the knitter doing the seaming, the red fabric held in front shows its purl side, while the green fabric held behind shows the knit face--its purl face is showing outside on the back of the work. When the seam is finished, the fabric will be flipped open so that both knit sides show while the purl sides (and the seam) will be hidden inside the garment.

This trick is called the "three needle bind off" because, besides the two needles acting as holders for the live loops at the top of each fabric, a third needle does the actual work, as shown below. Specifically, the third needle (silver) is inserted into BOTH first loops of the two fabrics. You can see that the insertion is from front to back in the same way you'd insert if you were going to knit the next stitch. The yarn doing the actual bind off--shown in blue--can be either a scrap of loose yarn, or the tail from one of the fabrics being seamed and bound off.

Using the third needle, the blue yarn is knit through both first loops, and both first loops just knit are dropped off. Next, the third needle is again inserted into two loops, another stitch is knit with the blue yarn, and again, the two loops just knit are dropped off. The below illustration shows two blue loops drawn through, as they rest on the working (right) needle, waiting for the bind off step. As you see, the blue loops pass through the top loops of both the red and the green fabric.

The last step is to pass the first blue loop over the second. This is done exactly as for the chain bind off discussed earlier. Note that at any point in the process, there will always either be two loops on the right needle, which happens when the first loop is waiting to be drawn over the second, or there will be one loop on the right needle when, as below, the first loop has already been drawn over the second.

For a final illustration, here is an actual photo of a partially finished three-needle bind off, "in the wool." The two shiny holder needles are being held upright, out of the way. The third--the grey working needle--has already been poked through the front (red) as well as the back (green) fabric, getting ready to catch up the next blue loop. Showing to the right is the blue chain of the seam being formed as the fabric-tops are chain bound off together.

To work the seam to completion, you would repeatedly work the insertion, the drawing up and the passing over, all the way to the end of the holder needles. At the last stitch, cut the blue yarn, leaving a tail at least several inches long. Draw this tail through the last loops as is done for chain bind off (scroll to the bottom of the chain bind off post for several different methods). Then work in the tail.

Three needle bind off is often recommended for shoulder seams, but it can be used anywhere that two lines of live loops come together and require a sturdy seam to connect them.

One last thing: usually, an equal number of stitches will be on each of the two holder needles when working a three needle bind off. Sometimes, however, you wind up with an uneven number, either by accident or design. In such a case, you have two choices:

either work three stitches off together with the working needle and the running yarn, which is a trick to even up the numbers of stitches while seaming
get rid of an extra stitch of by passing it over a neighboring stitch while the stitches are still on the holder needle. With this second option, you are reducing the count so that equal numbers of stitches will be on both needles before seaming.

Good knitting--TK

You have been reading TECHknitting blog on 3 needle bind off

Author error--three needle bind off

2011-12-25T11:21:00.008-06:00

TECHknitting blog published a post on three needle bind off. Unfortunately, I skipped a brain gear and wrote the directions BACKWARDS which I did not realize until an alert reader commented.

If you read the original post, please erase your memory banks and go to this corrected post, instead.

With apologies, TK

Dear Club Osinka/Уважаемый клуб Осинка

2011-12-16T21:04:00.003-06:00

Please stop pirating my illustrations. It takes a long time to draw each one, each is copyrighted, and it is disheartening to see them ripped off. If you want to supply a Russian translation, feel free, but link back to the original illustrations, instead of pasting them into your own document.

Пожалуйста, прекратите воровство моего иллюстраций.
Нарисовать каждую из них занимает много времени, они все

защищены авторским правом, и мне грустно видеть их
украденными. Если вы захотите перевести надписи на
иллюстрациях, пожалуйста, я не против. Однако вы должны
добавить ссылки на оригинальные изображения, а не просто
вставить мои картинки в свой собственный текст.

--TECHknitter

Increasing in seed stitch (and decreasing in seed stitch, too!)

2011-12-07T09:40:00.003-06:00

Seed stitch (sometimes called moss stitch) is a stitch pattern which arranges knits and purls checkerboard-fashion so that every purl is surrounded by 4 knits, and every knit by 4 purls.

seed stitch arranges knits and purls checkerboard-fashion

Increasing and decreasing in a very regular stitch pattern like this is disruptive, and several recent e-mails to TECHknitting blog have asked how to do this smoothly.

No doubt there are several different methods, but my own little trick is to run a single column of knits, and increase or decrease along that line. Stated otherwise, pushing the stitch pattern discontinuity up against a continuous column of knit stitches smooths and hides the irregularity.

Increasing seed stitch in circular knitting

Here is a schematic of what this would look like when knitting circularly, with the increase running along a single increase line, as it might be for a sleeve knit in the round.

circular knit seed stitch: increasing
along the center line, schematic

In the above schematic, the work is laid flat so you can see it, but in the real world, this sleeve will have been knit into a continuous spiral--a cone-shape, open at the bottom. You have to use your imagination to "zip it shut" into a circle, along the red dotted lines. In other words, for a circularly-knit sleeve, you would actually have knit this around and around, connected at the dotted lines. The continuous column of knits running down the schematic center is actually the sleeve underarm "seam."

Below is a photo of what an increase along a center line for an underarm looks like "in the wool."

circular knit seed stitch: increasing
along the center line, "in the wool"

How to make the increases

The little red loops stand for the increases, and you can use any kind of increases you like. I personally use backwards loops slanting in different directions, as detailed here, but many kinds of increases will give a perfectly lovely result, such as kfb (knit front and back) or the nearly invisible increase. Using a yo (yarn over) will result in holes, however, so yo's are not a great choice.

This all sounds very simple, and ultimately it is, but a lot of confusion typically surrounds increasing in pattern, so let's run through increasing one more time, in more detail, OK?

The surprising fact is that when you come to make the increases, you can just make whatever kinds of increases you prefer, not worrying about whether the stitch to which the increase gives rise is ultimately going to be a knit or a purl. That's right--when you make the increases, you just make them however you like. Only on the FOLLOWING row do you have to worry about working that increased stitch as a knit or a purl, according to the checkerboard pattern established by the surrounding stitches.

Stated otherwise, a loop added to the fabric in the form of an added stitch does not take on the character of a knit or a purl until it is worked on the FOLLOWING row. (If you are curious why this should be, a fuller explanation about this particular mystery of knitting is found in this post.) So the bottom line is, just make a pair of increases, and on the row or round after the increase, then work those new stitches as whatever they ought to be (whether knit or purl) as required to keep the checkerboard pattern going.

Increasing seed stitch in flat (back-and-forth) knitting

So far, we've shown the trick of increasing along a center line, such as would occur in circular knitting of a sleeve. However, many patterns call for seed stitch to be worked flat (back-and-forth). Here is what the trick looks like when knitting flat (back-and-forth) and the increase is along the outer edges, instead of down the middle.

flat knit seed stitch: increasing
along the edges, schematic

Above is the schematic, and below is the final result "in the wool." The seam (red dotted lines) has not yet been sewn shut, and the sleeve is laying flat.

flat knit seed stitch: increasing
along the edges, "in the wool"

Rate of increase

In both situations illustrated in this post, I tried to cram lots of increases into a small sample, so the increases are worked every fourth row. However, an increase every 6th or 8th row might be more common for a sleeve, for example. Nevertheless, although the RATE may differ, the METHOD remains the same. Just work your increases on either side of a center line (if working circular) or one stitch in from the edge line (if working back-and-forth), at the rate required. Then, on the NEXT row, worry about whether the increased stitch should be worked as a knit or a purl, according to the seed stitch pattern established by the surrounding stitches.

Variation--more than one knit column separating increases

I have chosen to have a single center column of knits, or a single column of knits along the fabric edge. There is nothing to stop you from running two or three or more columns of knits, instead. In fact, for a situation where there will be seaming, remember that the edge stitches might be completely consumed in the seaming process, so an extra knit column along each outer edge might come in very handy. Consider all this ahead of time, and adjust the stitch count, if necessary, so as to allow for the all-knit column(s) as well as to provide an odd or even number of stitches, as circumstances dictate, so that the stitch pattern is uninterrupted.

DEcreasing in seed stitch

All of the above relates to INCREASING in seed stitch, as might occur in a sleeve started at the bottom increasing from wrist diameter to shoulder diameter. Sometimes, however, you might be working the other way around, such as a sleeve started at the shoulder, and required to DECREASE to the wrist diameter as the sleeve is worked.

Luckily, DEcreasing in seed stitch is exactly the same theory, except that you simply work two stitches TOGETHER at the required rate, rather than form an increase. It is a nice touch to employ symmetrical decreases such as the right leaning k2tog and the left leaning SSK (or the left-leaning SYTK).

Once the excess stitch has been removed on either side of the center line, or on either edge of the row, continue to work the remaining stitches in checkerboard pattern as required by the surrounding stitches. Stated otherwise, the LOCATION of the decreases is the same as the location of the increases: if working circularly, one on either side of a center line of knits; if working back and forth, one decrease on each end of the indicated decrease row, one stitch in from the knit column(s) along each edge.

Does this look familiar?

When you get right down to it, this trick of shaping on either side of a column of knits is really just an adaptation of a method widely used in circular-knit raglan sweaters: if you have ever knit a raglan sweater in the round, this is the shaping which is done on either side of the 4 raglan seams, keeping the center column(s) in all-knits. The difference here is that the shaping (increasing or decreasing) is done in pattern of seed stitch, instead of stockinette, and the column of knits is used to disguise the stitch pattern discontinuity resulting from shaping.

--TK
You have been reading TECHknitting blog on increasing in seed stitch, and decreasing in seed stitch, too!

Handy knitting links

2011-11-24T01:00:00.015-06:00

Here are some great links I've been saving up. Thanksgiving seemed the right time to share these.

A burn chart to help identify mystery fibers
Print off your own true-to-scale knitting graph paper
LibriVox--5000+ free audio recordings in the public domain: enjoy while knitting.

Happy turkey day!

--TK

Thinking about thinking about knitting / Two old sweaters stage a cedar closet jail break

2011-11-17T15:46:00.003-06:00

Two different strands wind through today's post, but never fear, they come together at the end.

1. Thinking about thinking about knitting

When I knit, my thoughts sometimes wander to knitting to the past. Then I think about the long-ago knitters and what they were thinking about, a sort of recursive trip down memory lane

As they knit along, those old time knitters knew for sure they were making something valuable. Long ago people thought about their clothes much differently. In that society, people listed clothes in their estate inventories, or made made them part of their will. A nice pair of hand-knit stockings were worthy of being passed along as a special bequest for usefulness and remembrance. That attitude lasted a long time, too. When asked why she kept old clothes which no longer fit, my grandmother (born in Austria in 1902) used to reply with a German proverb that "clothes outlive their people."

Today, clothes don't have that resonance. Clothes are not really considered valuable. That, too, is something I think about when knitting: after all, it takes a certain thickness of skin to be a confirmed hand-knitter in the day of cheap ready-made sweaters and expensive yarn. However difficult life was for the old-time knitters, the usefulness of their craft was never at issue. So, while we think about knitting's value while we knit, that's one thing with which the old-time knitters never had to concern themselves: clothes in that day were valuable and scarce.

2. Two old sweaters stage a cedar closet jail break

Another by-product of clothes not being considered valuable nowadays is that, when people pass on, it seems a bit creepy, almost, to keep their old clothes around. The old way of passing your clothes on to others hardly exists: those clothes are more likely to end up in the goodwill store than being worn around. And yet, hand-knitting, at least around here, recently broke this trend.

two old sweaters

Here are a couple of sweaters I knit a long time ago for my father (brown sweater) and my stepfather (green vest). When both men passed on, I got the garments back. For years and years they sat in the cedar closet.

Meanwhile, my son was born, and grew and grew. Last year, at 12, he outgrew the sweater he'd been wearing as a sort of a dress-uniform for semi-formal occasions. He told me he needed a new one. I almost cast on then and there, but something passing though my mind sent me upstairs to the cedar closet instead. Down came the brown sweater. To my surprise, it fit him. For the past year, this old sweater has become his new dress-uniform. A few weeks ago, I was up in the closet again, looking for an old project to photograph for the blog. There sat the green vest. That turned out to fit, also, so now he has a sort of a uniform-rotation. (And who says the knitter's children have no sweaters? That kid has two!)

I almost didn't bring the sweaters out of the closet, because I thought it would be kind of unsettling. Instead, the sight of those old sweaters given a new life turns out to be a sort of relief. I feel like I can think about their original owners again without the first thought being "oh! they're both dead now." For one thing, I have to remember just how small both my father and stepfather really were, when I see the kid running around in their old sweaters.

sitting on the shelf with the everyday clothes

When these two old sweaters escaped from the cedar closet to sit on the shelf with the every-day clothes, they turned out to be something valuable, like something made by the old-time knitters: a glimpse of my family's past as well a glimpse of the textile-past, both brought to life.

Further, I now know something about the old time knitters and their thoughts which I didn't know before. When we knit, we think a lot about the person we are knitting for. But when they knit, the long ago knitters were making making a garment independent, in a certain way, of the person for whom it was knit. I mean, I'm sure they thought about the sweater-recipient, but they also expected that the garment would be passed along when the recipient had no further need of it; not gotten rid of, or stuck in a cedar-closet jail of remembrance.

* * *

Something new to think about while I knit, I guess.

TK

"Picture Frame" your color knitting to eliminate the jog on discontinuous rounds

2011-11-15T10:10:00.004-06:00

A recent post on Ravelry showed the problem with discontinuous rounds of color knitting against a solid background.

Color knitting in the round forms a spiral. Therefore, the end of each round is 1 stitch above the beginning of that same round, forming an unattractive "jog."

When knitting is worked in CONTINUOUS stripes, there are two really nifty tricks to mitigate that jog:

However, although both the jogless stripe trick and the helix stripe trick are nifty tricks that really work, they have their limitations. Specifically, where the colors are one round or more rounds high, but AREN'T CONTINUOUS, neither jogless nor helix will work.

The most common example of non-continuous stripes are one-stitch high stripes in different colors: Fair-Isle knitting is a subset of that category, since each motif is typically made up of single-stitch-high color changing rounds.

Traditionally in Fair Isle-type knitting, the color jog wasn't hidden, but was placed as far out of sight as possible: under the left arm. A different traditional treatment was to center the color change dab smack in the middle of the sweater front, and then cut the sweater (called "steeking") up the discontinuity. (For those unfamiliar, a steek is secured by sewing before cutting, then the front bands are put on either side of the cut afterwards.) Putting the color change at the steek separates the offset by the width of the front bands, making it indiscernible.

A third trick, not much known, is called "picture framing." By this trick, the patterns forming color-stripes are purposely kept apart by a few columns of either an added color, or a few background-colored stitches, as shown below.

Any Fair-Isle (or any other kind of colorwork) sweater can be adapted by picture-framing: you just add a few columns (stitches) to the pattern and always knit those stitches in the frame-color.

Here is a real life example of picture-framing on the side seam of a Fair-Isle inspired garment. This frame is quite a bit more complicated than the simple background-colored vertical stripe shown in the line drawings above, but follows from the same idea.

As for the how to, you can carry the yarn frame color along, up the columns by winding it into a small butterfly or bobbin and keep that hanging on-site (don't carry it around the round). When you get to the frame, draw the running yarn from the bobbin back to the starting point and knit the frame columns with it. The other colors are simply stranded behind the picture frame columns, every time you come to them. Alternatively, if the same colors are always used in the frame as in the main body of the work, as in the photo above, you can just knit the frame as part of the ordinary colorwork.

Obviously, if you make a very wide frame, this will make something of a welt (raised ridge) at the frame, because of the stranding yarn behind the columns of the frame. However, over a short span (2 or 3 or even 4 stitches) maintaining a loose tension will generally avoid the welting problem.

PS: In the comments, Beverly mentions a pair of socks she designed which feature picture framing separating patterned panels from one another. These socks are a good example of using simple background-color picture framing to avoid a pattern jog, go have a look.

Good knitting, TK
You have been reading TECHknitting on "how to avoid a jog in Fair-Isle knitting"

A felting primer for hand knits (wet felting)

2011-11-07T00:05:00.006-06:00

Felting knitting, or "what's in a name?"

Let's untangle the name first. Some call it fulling and some call it felting. Although there are technical differences between these terms, they have come to mean the same thing in common speech. "Felting" is the better-known term, so that's the word going to be used in this post.

Another name worth untangling is "boiled wool." The fabric which results from felting is sometimes called this, yet this is misleading. You CAN boil wool to felt it, but you certainly don't have to.

So, what IS felting?

This post is about wet felting. Wet felting happens when wool is subjected to three factors simultaneously. First, there must be WETTING; second, TEMPERATURE CHANGE and third, AGITATION. When all three of these things happen at once, woolen fabric will shrink substantially, becoming both thicker and smaller. (There is another kind of felting done dry which is worked with barbed needles. This is called needle felting, but it is not covered in today's post.)

Why felt?

Felting has two sides to its nature: the utility aspect, and beauty inherent in such a dense fabric.

utility

Felt is as close to a miracle fiber as you can make outside of a lab. It is somewhat rain-proof, somewhat wind-proof, immensely warm and very hard-wearing--nomads in some of the world's coldest places live in felt huts, dress themselves in felted hats and shoes and use felt saddle cloths on their horses. Closer to home, my kids have worn felted mittens here in Wisconsin for years: here is the same pair as shown in the opening illustration after they were worn for two years by a little boy for snowball fights, sledding and all-around tom-foolery. An unfelted mitten would never have survived, but these are tucked away safe, waiting for another little kid who needs bomb-proof mittens.

< threadjack >
If you want to make the mittens illustrated in this post, they are available in a couple of ways:
For recipe (free) click here
For the pattern ($3.25, child's XS-XL) you can
*Click through to the pattern page
*Click through to the project page
*or buy the pattern now

< / threadjack >

beauty of the fabric

However, utility knits aren't the only reason to felt. Felting has an inherent beauty: a soft, lush look. The stitches lose definition and meld into a harmonious whole, the surface becomes matte. Here is a peek at the fabric of a felted cushion. The density of the fabric not only makes it wear hard, but makes it almost luminous--the depth of the fabric reacts with light differently than a thinner or smoother or shinier fabric would, leaving the colors more saturated. Of all the cushions we have in the house, this is the one that people find themselves holding and carrying around from place to place.

Felting is irreversible

Felting is an irreversible process. Once felted, a hand knit garment cannot be unraveled. The yarn has stuck to itself and congealed, so to speak, into a solid mass. This irreversibility has both a downside and an upside.

On the downside, that beautiful hand knit which went into the washing machine by accident has been ruined, yes. Nothing--not vinegar, not yogurt, not shampoo, not conditioner--can bring it back to its pre-felted state.
On the upside, it is the very irreversibility of the process that makes felted items so hard-wearing. Felted knitting can be cut, sewn and shaped. It will not unravel, so a felted sweater can have a long and lovely second act cut up and sewn into cozy mittens and slippers.

Felting is unpredictable

Besides being irreversible, felting is also unpredictable. Sometimes, felting occurs gradually and evenly across an entire garment. More often, the process occurs suddenly and unevenly. Accordingly, felting garments to fit is something of a gamble. It is true that felted garments are available for sale--"boiled wool" jackets are a famous example. However, these garments are made from sheets of knitting which has been felted and then cut and sewn. The jackets are not "boiled," the fabric is. For this reason, most knit-and-felt patterns are for bags, or mittens, or slippers: items where the fit isn't super-important.

Four ways to felt

The two main ways to felt are by hand, or using a washing machine. Two other methods are by using a (clean!) toilet-plunger or by using a dryer. Whichever way you choose, however, consider turning the item inside out first, because the exposed side can get a bit roughed up by the process.

With hand-felting, you have more control over the project. The mittens in the photo above were stopped from felting further at just the right time by having a paper pattern handy, against which the mittens were frequently compared as the size got nearer and nearer.

For larger projects, or for projects where fit is not so much of an issue, felting in the washing machine is a good choice. Felting a large project by hand makes you realize the immense strength that the old washer-women must have had, to wrestle wet and heavy fabrics by hand.

hand felting

The basis of felting is that you knead and rub with the aid of dish-washing detergent—the suds act as a lubricant, making the rubbing easier. (That's hand dishwashing detergent, not machine detergent!)

First, prepare a basin with cold water, and another with hot water, as hot as you can stand. (Hint: wearing dishwashing gloves lets you use far hotter water than you could stand without them.) Wet the item to be felted in the hot water, then lift it out of the water and rub and knead a drop or two of dish detergent through it. Hold one part of the item in one hand and the other part in the other hand, and rub the item on itself, changing your grip frequently to bring new parts into the process. Rubbing evenly all over gets the best all-over felting.

Dunk the item into the hot water again, and begin to wash the detergent out, then abruptly dunk the item in the cold water and continue kneading and rubbing. Again lift the item out of the water, add a drop or two of detergent, then agitate and rub for a while. Continue in the manner, alternating sudsy kneading under hot and cold shocks until the item is the size you want. The felting and shrinking usually occurs when the cold water shocks the wool, although it sometimes occurs on a hot-water shock.

Sometimes glove fingers or mitten thumbs fingers might try and felt shut. Keep a wooden-spoon handle or chopstick handy to poke apart unwanted interior felting.

If you want to try boiling, dunk the project into a pot of boiling water , stir it with a wooden spoon, dunk it back in the cold water and do the soap and agitation cold. Repeat. One thing about boiling is that dyes used on woolens aren't always benign. Be sure to wash the pot very thoroughly afterwards, and use only a stainless steel pot to avoid unwanted interaction of the pot-metal with the dyes.

However you do it, this process sometimes takes a LOT longer than you think, and you might have to replace the hot water with fresh if it gets too cool. Depending on the color and type of wool, it has taken me as long as 20 minutes of constant agitation and temperature shocks to felt one measly mitten. Other times, however, the process takes place so fast you can hardly see it happening. If it is taking a while, take heart: although you may doubt it while you are wrestling away, as long as the item was knit with ordinary wool (NOT SUPERWASH!!!) it will eventually shrink.

When the item is the size you want, stop rubbing. Let the item come to room temperature, then gently rinse out the suds in fresh lukewarm water, then lay flat to dry out of the sun.

washing machine felting:

top loaders vs. front loaders

The easiest machine for felting in an old-fashioned top loader you can stop in mid cycle. This lets you haul out the wet item to test the size as the process progresses. These old top-loaders also let you re-position stuff--sometimes items to be felted get folded on themselves during the spin cycle, and the marks left behind can be hard to get rid of. Another advantage is that, on most top-loaders, you can change the cycle with the twist of a dial, easily switching from wash to rinse to spin. Yet another advantage is that you can keep cleaning the lint screen if your project sheds. Top loaders do have one important downside, though: believe it or not, a washing machine agitator can break your arm. Be sure the machine is turned OFF before you reach in.

Felting can also be done with a front-loader. These machines lock and it is often difficult to change the pre-set program once its started, so to get around this, choose the shortest cycle. This lets you keep checking the size after each run-through.

machine how-to

The principles of felting are the same whether by hand or machine: lots of temperature changes, lots of agitation. Each machine has different settings, so look for a heavy-duty cycle (lots of agitation) with abrupt temperature changes (hot wash followed by cold rinse, or vice versa). Unless the item is massive, it probably makes more sense to toss your felting in with a compatible load (or loads!) you were planning to run anyway.

Some people prefer to run the item through the washer in a mesh bag or a pillow case. This does help catch the fibers from the wool, but has the downside that the fibers may be re-deposited on the surface of the item. Nevertheless, if your machine is elderly or likely to get clogged from a particularly wooly project, a bag is probably a good idea.

If you are using a method where you can't get at the item during the felting process (the item is in a pillow case or a mesh bag, or if you are using a front loader which can't be stopped) you might want to consider stuffing the project loosely with a small rag. This helps keep the item from folding over on itself inside the bag or during the spin cycle: folding can leave crease marks. For small items, a loose stuffing can also help prevent the item from starting to felt to itself.

Yet another trick: a toilet plunger

A toilet plunger offers yet another way to felt. Yes, this sounds d.i.s.g.u.s.t.i.n.g, and so it would be if you used the same plunger for felting as for your toilet. Yuk. Don't do that. Buy a brand new toilet plunger and hide it away when you're not felting.

Fill the tub with hot water, and the bathroom sink with cold water and have at it with the plunger. This is more work that machine felting but less work than hand-felting. Plus, unlike front-loader felting, with a toilet plunger, you can stop at any time to check the project.

A final trick: dryer felting

You can also felt hand knits, sort of, in a dryer. You put in the wet item (turn it inside out) and the dryer does the temperature change and agitation part. The upside of this is that you can stop the dryer at any time and have a look, the downside is that it often takes multiple wetting/drying cycles to get a moderate amount of felting: the temperature change is gradual, and the agitation less than if the item were in water. This will eventually work, but it's slow, and even slower if you put it into a bag or pillow case.

Washing felted items

Just because something is felted doesn't mean it won't shrink if you wash it again. The upside is that if the item is still too big, you can re-felt it. But if you'd like the felted item to retain its size, wash it the same way you would wash all woolens: cool water, no agitation, no temperature shocks, and no dryer. On the other hand, felt doesn't really seem to get very dirty--to my recollection, I've never actually had to wash a pair of felted mittens.

Embroidery

There is something about felted wool which pairs well with embroidery. Below are some "alien eyeball" mittens (also much worn) which were embroidered after felting with a sharp needle and woolen (called "tapestry") yarn. Although there are exceptions, knitting generally doesn't play well with embroidery because the embroidery sinks into the stitches. However, felted knitting has no such problem.

(These are child's size large from the kid-mitt pattern, just somewhat misshapen, you know, from long wear.)

--Good knitting, TK

You have been reading TECHknitting on "felting knitting."

The stretchiest (and easiest) cast on and bind off

2011-11-04T10:08:00.000-05:00

There are many elegant and stretchy ways to start and end knitting, and particularly, ribbing. Among these are:

Tubular cast on
Tubular bind off
Elizabeth Zimmerman's sewn bind off
JSSCO (cast on)
JSSBO (bind off)
Reverse stockinette cast on
The "miraculous" stretchy bind off

Every single one of these is a great invention, a monument to human ingenuity.

Yet, when I go to cast on or bind off, the technique I use more than any other is the simple rolled edge.

simple rolled edge on 1x1 ribbing

This edge can take it--hats and mittens go through three kids and the edge still looks good. Socks last until the heels wear out. The main thing, though, is that it Could.Not.Be.Easier.

Step 1: cast on any way you like: long-tail, cable cast on, literally any method at all. The only thing is make it LOOSE. Much looser than you think. Use larger needles if you need to.
Step 2: switch to the needles you'll use for the ribbing and make the rolled edge by working several rows or rounds of stockinette.
Step 3: start your ribbing.

That's it.

For bind off, reverse: work several rows or rounds of stockinette, then bind off any way you like. Just make it LOOSE. Bonus points: bind off and cast on match.

The stockinette rolls over, hides the edge, wears like iron, never binds.

--TK

Elizabeth Cap pattern available for purchase

2011-10-28T14:41:00.011-05:00

The TECHknitting pattern is now available for Elizabeth Cap. The pattern is 7 pages long and includes tutorials on two kinds of garter stitch selvedges and picking up stitches, as well as written instructions plus schematics for the project.

Inspired by the soft flattering caps worn by women for hundreds of years, the cap is worked in modular sections. The cap is all flat-knit (back and forth) in garter stitch, and was designed especially for "hand painted" yarns. Gauge and yarn info are on the cover shown below (click image to enlarge).

You can view projects made with this pattern on Ravelry or
You can purchase the pattern through Ravelry or
You can purchase the pattern directly by clicking below

The cost is $5.00 USD

Good knitting
--TK

What the yarn wants to be

2011-10-24T16:11:00.005-05:00

The last post was about a new pattern coming out by the end of this week, which represents something of a new direction for TECHknitting blog--a pattern offered for sale. This is a small pattern for a ladies cap, called the "Elizabeth cap." In the comments, a reader wrote:

"...I'll be especially interested to read about your process."

Which got me thinking backwards and thus begat today's post.

* * *

The drive for every knitting project comes from a different place, I think. Sometimes, the project is product-driven ("I need a red sweater for the Christmas party"). Sometimes, the project is process-driven ("I love knitting cables"). Often, a couple of drives collide ("I'll knit a red cable sweater!") But this particular project, this cap, was mostly yarn-driven.

As stated in the last post, I was away from knitting for a long time. Oh, I did keep knitting the occasional project, but mostly on yarn I had laying around. When I sold my yarn shop, I held back a *bunch* of my favorite yarn--for years, yarn shopping was unnecessary. When the long drought was over, yarn shops were full of all kinds of new yarn. Gone were the old standards (sniff, Brunswick Germantown, RIP). In their place were new! exciting! yarns!

Among these new yarns were "hand painted." These looked excellent in the skein, but when knit up in stockinette, they seemed odd and splotchy. Yet, the colors were intriguing and inspired, so I kept trying.

Texture work was a flop--knitting cables and other textures in these yarns was a waste of energy. The textures were nearly invisible against the surging colors.

Lace work was a flop--the repetitive patterns which make lace inserts so attractive were disrupted by the non-repetitive color placement. The variations-on-a-theme which anchor the most beautiful lace projects were equally lost.

What the heck was that yarn trying to be? Not stockinette, not cables, not lace inserts, not lace projects, so what? It bugged me for a long time.

Of course, by this time, I had a bunch of this kind of yarn laying around. So, one day, just to use up the yarn, I made a pair of socks in stockinette, with garter stitch heels.

Well! The heel was everything the rest of the sock was not--the socks were splotchy, the heels were beautiful strips of color. The "heads" of the stitches alternating down the length of the garter ridges made dots of contrasting color all the way down the row, so the colors worked together in the fabric in the same way they worked in the skein. Finally. Hallelujah.

Yet, although this solved the color-splotch problem, garter stitch has issues of its own. In garter stitch, the yarn is laid into the fabric at an angle, rather than laying in flat sheets, as it does is stockinette. All these angled stitches make the yarn thick rather than tall, so for a fabric of the same height, garter stitch takes considerately more yarn than does stockinette. As a result:

the fabric is heavy.
containing as much reserve yarn as it does, garter-stitch fabric is stretchy and unstable lengthwise. In other words, garter stitch wants to stretch and stretch and stretch when it is worn, as those angled stitches get dragged straighter and straighter through wear and gravity. Harnessed in a good way, this is excellent. For one example, garter stitch jackets made for children almost magically grow with their wearers, and this a really swell thing for little people. But for grownups, not so much.
because of the amount of yarn it takes, garter stitch is s-l-o-w to knit, which translates into b-o-r-i-n-g.

The constraints were clear. The project must be small; stretch must be wanted, but not so much that the garment became misshapen; and the yarn used be of a light weight, so that stretch and distortion could be combated by knitting more tightly.So, that was one train coming down the track--the need to find a project in which hand painted yarn of a light weight could be knit up in garter stitch.

Coming down the track in the other direction was the perennial train of necessity, here in the upper Midwest, to find a winter hat. The ideal hat would not create hat-hair and would not pin one's ears to one's head so that they ached after a short time. Versatility would be a good thing, too: the choice to wear hair in, or hair out, and for the hat to be light enough to store in a pocket until needed.

Eventually, these two trains got switched onto the same track when I sat down to knit the nth winter hat of my career, using some light-weight hand-painted yarn knit in garter stitch. This little cap emerged after several experiments in adding ease over the ears and over the cap back, but not over the front of the cap. The final profile owes a lot to Elizabethan-era caps, which led to the name "Elizabeth cap." After all, Elizabethan women were required by custom to cover their hair at all times. They must, I thought, have figured out a comfortable, attractive solution.

The yarn I chose, Pagewood Farms' Glacier Bay, has a lovely crunchy hand when firmly knit in garter stitch. Yet, the unfortunate reality is that Glacier Bay is not commonly available (although if you can find it, try it--it is a unique yarn, at a unique weight, and no, I am not related to the fine folks at Pagewood Farms in any way). So, I re-worked the cap in hand painted sock yarn, and that was satisfactory, also.

I've made four of these so far, and they seem popular. This led me to write up the pattern (which will be available Thursday or Friday of this week).

That's a lot of backstory to freight down such a little cap. But, it was fun to research and fun to write. It's also been fun to wear, and to knit a bunch of them, and it's been a trip down memory lane to write the pattern.

In a nutshell, the process of designing this little project was letting the yarn be what wants to be.

--Best, TK

A peek behind the scenes: patterns, old school style

2011-10-21T12:25:00.003-05:00

Many years ago, I owned a yarn shop. I taught lessons, wrote patterns and sold them and did the whole business thing. I even started a knitting book. Oh, I even taught myself Adobe Illustrator, in order to provide the illustrations (and LORD was that program S-L-O-W when it first came out).

Anyhow, despite all the knitting stuff I loved, life got in the way, and I turned my hand to other things. There were times I wondered pretty severely how it was all going to turn out, and some times when I was pretty sure it wasn't going to turn out at all. However, with great good luck and all due humility, that non-knitting hiatus worked out OK.

In the past few years, the 24/7 stuff has been gradually fading away, and I have able to find the spare moments to come back to knitting. One day in 2006, I was poking around the internet, and somehow found a knitting blog. Man, that was IT! I was hooked. Two days later, TECHknitting blog stated--I think it took me the whole two days to get the first post up. I was so excited, I don't think I slept.

Ever since then, I've been using every spare minute for knitting and drawing and writing. And lately, the little voices in my head have been whispering to me that I really ought to go back to pattern writing.

The last time I regularly wrote patterns, spread sheets hadn't yet become very popular. (I think the dinosaurs roaming around everywhere got in the way.) So, I learned to do pattern grading and gauge grading all by hand. Now that I've sat down to start pattern writing again, old habits die hard. I do the illustrations in Adobe Illustrator, I put the pattern together using Adobe InDesign, and know I could do the gauge grading in Excel, but here I am, writing patterns with paper and pencil. Go figure.

A new TECHknitting pattern is about to come out--a pattern for an Elizabethan-style cap--and I thought a peek behind the scenes at old-school pattern-writing might be interesting, in a time-capsule kind of way.

The pattern will be for sale on Ravelry in about a week. It's no biggie, it's just a cap, but it is a new direction around chezTECH, a further return to the knitting business that I had to leave behind so long ago.

--TK

"Multiple of X plus Y"--stitch pattern notation explained

2011-10-18T18:06:00.003-05:00

How's this? "Cast on a multiple of 12 stitches plus 5." Or how about "pattern is a multiple of 9 stitches plus 3"? Does that sound horribly like high school algebra? Does it confuse you? If my e-mail is anything to go by, you are not alone.

* * *

Suppose we are working a cable over 6 stitches. Another way of saying this is that the cable is a multiple of 6.

a single 6-st-wide cable

For each cable we want to cast on, we have to have six stitches. That seems simple enough. But, if we only cast on 6 stitches, we'll have a cable, yes, but no fabric on either side. If we want, let's say, three cables, it would be awfully tight (and not that pretty) to have nothing but cables sitting right next to one another--here, see for yourself.

three 6-st-wide cables, stacked next to one another

So, let's set each cable against its own little patch of background fabric. In other words, we'll add a little fabric on each side of the cable to set it off, 3 purl columns, say.

a 6-st-wide cable (purple) set off by two 3-st-wide columns of purl (blue)

The original 6-stitch cable with its two new 3-stitch-wide side flaps is going to take up 12 stitches: 3+6+3. This LOOKS like we've developed a 12-stitch-wide stitch-pattern. And, indeed, if we just wanted to make a skinny single cable scarf, we'd say "cast on 12 stitches." So far, so good.

But, suppose we want a scarf with two cables. If we simply double the 12-stitch-wide stitch-pattern we've developed, we get trouble.

two 12-st-wide cable patterns, side by side

As you can see, doubling twelve (casting on 24) means the cables aren't centered in the fabric. Instead of being framed on both sides by THREE columns of purls, the two cables are separated from one another by SIX columns of purls. Now the edge-columns are looking a little skimpy, the fabric is unbalanced, and the cable placement is not symmetrical.

The problem, of course, is that we really only needed THREE purl columns between the two cables, not SIX. The three purl columns in the middle of the fabric ought to be SHARED between the cables. In order to share these columns, however, we're going to have to think about this stitch pattern in a different way.

a nine-st-wide stitch pattern

What if we think of this particular stitch pattern as being NINE stitches wide as shown above, instead of TWELVE stitches wide? When we stack up these nine-stitch-wide patterns side-by-side, we can see that the cables are sharing the center three purl columns just fine.

two nine-st wide stitch patterns, side by side

Conceptualizing this as a nine-stitch-wide stitch pattern has certainly solved the problem of sharing the purl columns between the cables. Yet it clearly leaves us with a different problem. That second cable? The one to the left? It's naked on its left edge. We're going to have to add three more purl columns to complete the pattern repeat to the outer left edge.

two nine-st-wide stitch patterns PLUS a 3-st-wide purl column (shown in red)

Now we're finally there: two 6-stitch-wide cables, each framed by 3 purl columns, and no naked knitting. In fact, we have a pattern of two multiples of 9, plus the three red edge stitches we just added. Our stitch pattern turns out to be a multiple of 9 plus 3.

looks like a twelve stitch pattern, but it actually
turns out to be a multiple of 9, plus 3

Stated otherwise, when we flanked our original 6 stitch cable with two 3-stitch-wide purl columns, we weren't developing a 12-stitch-wide pattern. It did have 12 stitches, true, but it was actually a pattern constructed of a single multiple of 9 stitches plus the 3 red edge stitches, as shown above.

By notating the pattern in this manner, we can stack any number of repeats side-by-side without throwing the pattern off. Further, this notation makes it quite easy to mathematically work out any number of pattern repeats very quickly. For example, a stitch pattern which is a multiple of 9 plus 3, such as this one, can be

12 stitches wide [1x9=9+3=12) which is one repeat of the pattern,
21 stitches wide [2x9=18+3=21] which is two repeats, or
30 stitches wide [3x9=27+3=30] which is three repeats, or
39 stitches wide [4x9=36+3=39) which is four repeats, and so on

where the large red numbers are the multiples--the number of pattern repeats and
the small red numbers are the "catch up" stitches required to complete the last
repeat of the pattern to the outer left edge.

--TK
You have been reading TECHknitting blog on stitch pattern notation: "Multiple of x plus y."

And the winners are...

2011-10-17T13:00:00.002-05:00

Until noon today, TECHknitting blog offered three random winners the chance to win one of three random books--books I somehow acquired doubles of over the years. After the noon cut-off, the three random winners picked were:

Margaret who wins "Knitted Lace of Estonia"

Astrante who wins "Knitting Brioche"

Jenny who wins "Fair Isle Knitting"

Congrats, thanks to all for commenting, and thanks for reading TECHknitting blog.

Good knitting! TK

Renew and reuse: refresh your Uggs

2011-10-13T15:24:00.004-05:00

Fall is coming. The cold-weather clothes are coming out. Here's a neat trick to get fix worn-out Uggs to get another year's wear out of them.

This is not actually a knitting post but close enough--a trick with loose wool. The thing with Uggs, heck, with all shearling boots, is that as time goes by, they start to wear out. First, the wool inside gets beaten down. Then, the leather tends to stretch with wear. So here's a (super) simple trick to refresh the innards of a well loved pair, and at the same time, tighten the fit to like-new.

1) obtain some loose wool--the kind of locks prepared for spinners (washed and combed) are perfect. However, pretty much any combed loose wool with vegetable matter and oils removed will do.

2. Slip some of this loose wool into your boots in small handfuls, trying to keep the strands of the fibers oriented in the the same direction. Insert your foot every handful or two, to test the fit, then keep going until things feel snug but not suffocating. Put the wool more around the edges of the foot, and don't put as much under the foot as you think--too much loose wool under the sole tends to clump up and get hard to walk on. As you walk around, the wool inside will mold to your foot.

It is best to wear your Uggs barefoot with this trick, or the loose wool will stick to your socks and make a mess. If you must wear socks, wear thin light-colored smooth cotton ones, *not* woolen.

As to the exactly best kind of wool to use, my own method has not been very scientific--I just grab a small bag of loose wool at a farmer's market whenever it comes up for sale, so I can't tell you what kinds are best. It does seem, however, that different batches of stuffing-wool last for different amounts of time. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable will speak up in the comments as to what would be a specific kind of wool to look for?

At any rate, when this new wool has become too trodden down--overly felted and worn, its easily removed and replaced with fresh.

Neat, huh? Not a new idea, though--this is actually a trick from the Middle Ages.

This is how folks kept their feet dry and warm in all manner of clunky footwear--wooden shoes and heavy boots. This is also how the fit was adjusted on the coarsely-sized footwear then made. Wool was used if available, but really poor folks used straw (ouch!) or moss.

--TK

Seeing double: your chance to win a knitting book

2011-10-05T10:38:00.002-05:00

Note: the below contest is now closed. Thanks for participating.
The other day, while reorganizing books in my studio, I realized I was seeing double.

The knitted Lace of Estonia by Nancy Bush
Knitting Brioche: Guide to the Brioche Stitch by Nancy Marchant
Fair Isle Knitting by Sarah Don

Although a big fan (huge!) of all three books, I have no use for an extra copy of each. So, to thank you for being readers of TECHknitting blog, three lucky commenters will be chosen, each to receive one of the (lightly used) duplicates.

To enter, all you have to do is tell me, in the comments
1. the title of your favorite knitting book--the one YOU would take to a desert island (pick from any book in the whole wide world, not just one of the three being given away)
and
2. the reason(s) why that particular book is your fave--

Charming things to knit?
Good illustrations?
Love the author's writing style?
Lays flat when you open it?
Straightforward instructions?
Inspirational?
Brilliant knitting insights?
Excellent photography?
Amazingly useful for ... starting? slogging through? completing? a garment
Good graphic design (layout of the contents)?
Some other reason(s)?

The fine print:
1. The whole process is going to be random: Three winners will be randomly chosen, and each of the three winners will randomly be assigned to win one or another of the three books available to be won.
2. A non-US winner would be responsible for any customs tax or fee incurred by receiving the book.
3. The entries will be closed at 12 noon, Monday October 17, CDT, and the winners will be announced shortly thereafter.

Good luck in the drawing, and thanks again for being a TECHknitting blog reader

--TK

How to sew on a button without the spacer sandwich

2011-10-01T01:06:00.004-05:00

A spacer sandwich? What?

one kind of spacer sandwich

Actually, this post is not about UFO's on a bun, it's about a different kind of spacer sandwich--it's about a little trick to make sewing on buttons easier. How it came about is that recently, I had to sew 9 buttons onto a sweater-coat. Naturally, only on the very last one did today's neat trick decide to reveal itself.

The problem arises because non-shanked buttons (the kinds with holes in the top) still need to have a shank (shank = little stem on button back). The shank raises the button high enough so that you can work the button into and out of the button hole without the button compressing the fabric. Naturally, the thicker the fabric, the longer must be the shank.

shanked and unshanked

Shanked buttons are offered in different shank heights, but unshanked buttons are more generally versatile--making the shank yourself out of thread allows you to custom-control the shank height, and so use the same button on a thin fabric or on a thick one.

The usual method for making a thread shank on an unshanked button involves inserting a spacer of the desired height (a matchstick or toothpick is common) between the button and the fabric, then sewing the button on over the spacer. At the end, the spacer is removed. The needle is then poked into the space between the button and the fabric, and the loose sewing loops are wrapped tightly with thread to make the shank. Finally, the end of the thread is "buried" in the thickness of the underlying fabric, taking one or two 180 degree bends on the way to stop it from pulling out. The end result of all the sandwiching and sewing and wrapping and burying is a thread shank.

a thread shank being wrapped

Until today's trick revealed itself to me, I dutifully sewed on buttons by making each into a button-spacer-sandwich: the button on top, the matchstick in the middle, and the knitting on the bottom. Naturally, until several stitches were made and this slippery sandwich snugged down, the spacer wanted to shoot out, fall down or generally wiggle around, taking the button with it and requiring the whole works to be carefully repositioned before sewing could re-commence. Annoying.

a spacer sandwich about to be sewn

So, on button number nine, when patience was wearing out and sailor words were about to fly, it occurred to me to tack the spacer down FIRST! with a couple of stitches! and THEN sew the button on over the spacer.

tack the spacer down first with a stitch or two,
and say goodbye to the wiggly sandwich

Whew.

Subscribing to TECHknitting blog

2011-09-20T10:37:00.000-05:00

Folks have been writing, asking how to subscribe to TECHknitting blog. Here is a method via Google Reader.

After you sign into Google you can "subscribe" on Reader by clicking on the "Add a subscription" button in the upper left hand corner, then typing in the name "TECHknitting." This will take you to the actual subscription page, where you can click on the little button that says "+ subscribe." Then, every time there is a new post, Reader will keep track of that for you.

Another advantage is that if you go to TECHknitting blog on Reader, you can read every post by simply scrolling down and down and down--the further down you scroll, the more of the blog which loads onto the reader, right back to the very first entry. (It's kind of scary to me to see how the illustrations get more primitive the further back you go.) On the other hand, if you want to read TECHknitting in the original formating (comments and all) just click on the post title to be taken there.

One of these days, Google will oblige this old blog template to be updated, and then there will be little buttons to make all this push-button easy. Until then, however, subscriptions have to be started the old-school manual way.

--TK

My sweater slips off my shoulders...

2011-09-16T21:12:00.006-05:00

TECHknitting blog is not about knitting rules, in fact quite the opposite--it's about knitter's choice. Yet if someone INSISTED that I HAD to state a rule, that rule would be to put a good sturdy seam across the shoulder tops and bind off the back of the neck of your knitted garment.

The rule

You see, the shoulder tops and neck back are the foundation of every sweater. Stated otherwise, unless you live on a space station without gravity, the point of greatest contact between you and your sweater is the shoulder seams and back of the neck, because the whole garment hangs from there. If the very top of the garment is yielding--if the neck back stretches out sideways and the shoulder seams are soft--then that garment will slip and slide from your shoulders and will never sit right.

Exceptions to the rule

Although I say a good sturdy seam is a rule, like all rules, there are exceptions and partial exceptions.

Tight garments with negative ease cling to the body and so need not have a sturdy shoulder--in fact the ultimate negative ease garment--the tube top--has no shoulders at all. In a very tight negative-ease sweater, there is very little weight hanging from the shoulder because it clings, rather than drapes.
Sleeveless garments and backless garments are held up with shoulder straps or perhaps even a tie and have no shoulders. These, too, are often quite tight garments, and their cling, coupled with the scanty amount of fabric means that there is no particular weight to drag the garment down.
Raglan sleeve garments, strictly speaking, do not have a shoulder seam either--they instead rely on 4 yoke seams radiating from neck to underarm to take the weight so no shoulder seam is needed. However, even these should have their neck backs bound off.
Yoke-style sweaters don't have seams, either. Instead, their construction has radiating columns of knitting extending out from the neck hole like a sunburst, and this arrangement helps distribute the weight to hang from the neck facing. These too require no shoulder seams, but their neck backs should be bound off, especially since the neck seam is the target for all the weight of this style garment.

Yet, although there are four exceptions to the "shoulder seam" rule (and probably more I'm overlooking) these are the kinds of exceptions which "prove the rule," as the saying goes. In other words, these exceptions show that the shoulder seam rule doesn't apply only when some OTHER measure is taken as a substitute. So, there must either be a way of getting around the seam, such as the four exceptions above, or there must be a good sturdy seam.

How the problem arises

Turning back to the slipping and sliding problem--how does it arise?

The back of the neck is too loose

Possibly the most common way to end up with a slipping sliding sweater to modify the directions for the back of the neck so that a collar or hood grows right out of the neck-back stitches, without any seam at all. In other words, what generally happens is that the pattern does call for the shoulders and neck back to be bound off, and then the collar or hood stitches to be picked up THROUGH the bound off stitches. Many knitters, faced with a pattern like that, come up with what seems a clever short cut to avoid binding off, then picking up the exact same stitches.

"I will simply avoid that seam," thinks the knitter "and simply keep knitting the collar or hood to grow right out of the neck-back stitches," and so goes their way rejoicing at the labor saved. The rejoicing stops, however, when the garment is put on and the neck back stretches and stretches, rather than remaining seated as it ought. Of course, sometimes the pattern itself is at fault for not specifying a bind off and pick up along the neck back, but you are now too clever to follow such instructions.

Melissa has written in the comments, asking about garments worked from the top down. Starting these with a permanent cast on is something of a gamble, tension-wise. IMHO, the best way to start these garments is with a provisional waste yarn cast on (called COWYAK--cast on with waste yarn and knit). At the end, cast the garment OFF at the top edge. This allows you to adjust the tension (more than once, if needed) for the neck opening, before going on with the neck band, collar or hood.

The neck hole is too big

A boat collar (also called a slit-neck) is an example of a garment with a very large neck opening. These are lovely to show off the shoulder tops and collar bones of an Audrey Hepburn, but they can be the very devil to keep on straight, without having the garment slide off one shoulder or another. V-neck and scoop neck styles can suffer this also, especially when too many stitches are picked up around the neck opening, or when the neckband is not knit for enough rows (knit too shallow).

The seam joining the shoulder tops is too soft

Another common cause of slipping and sliding is when the knitter modifies the shoulder seams by succumbing to the temptation for pretty, and kitchener stitches (grafts) the shoulders tops together, rather than putting in a good sturdy seam. Kitchener stitch sure SEEMS like sewing--in fact, it is often done with a sewing needle. However, Kitchener stitching is actually KNITTING--the needle follows the path that a knitted row would take, and that is why it is so utterly invisible. Knitting is stretchy, and having knit fabric on the shoulder without a raglan seam or a yoke construction to take the weight results in a slipping slider that's hard to wear. Again, some patterns actually call for a grafted shoulder, but you are free to ignore such instructions and seam, instead.

The garment construction is inherently slippy-slidy

Now we come to a large category of knitting a slipping slider: when the construction of the garment is responsible for the problem. This category breaks down into (at least!!) five further subheads.

Large sweater-coats
When an entire sweater-coat is knit from heavy yarn, there is a real problem of keeping it seated at the neck and shoulders, regardless of any construction detail. The fact is, knitting stretches, even properly bound off and seamed knitting. In this case, we knitters must borrow from tailors, and use their techniques--there is a description of reinforcement with a ribbon, below.

Drop shoulder sweaters
Drop shoulder sweaters do HAVE shoulder seams, but no real shoulders. Stated otherwise, The "shoulder seams" are so long that they hang well off the shoulder. This, coupled with the bulk and weight of the sleeves themselves, drags the garment away from the wearer's neck on both sides. This is especially a problem when the garment is a cardigan, knit in heavy wool. Worn open, drop-shoulder cardigans tend to slide away. If combined with a soft neck back (collar knit right out of the neck back stitches, for example) the result can be nearly unwearable.

Circle-knit garments
This innovative garment construction technique is sort of like wearing a round tablecloth with arms inserted. The upside is a beautiful radiating pattern, often with a lovely circle motif centered on the wearer's back and lovely falls and folds of fabric cascading down the fronts. The downside is often no shoulder seam at all--the top edge of the tablecloth is flipped back for a collar, and the shoulder line is formed at the fold. This fold may prove to be very soft and yielding. Some patterns get around this by having the circle truncated at the shoulder line, and then a collar added afterwards, some have other work-arounds, but many of these circle-knit garments offer a pretty fair dose of the slipping-problem.

Cuff-to-cuff garments
Cuff-to-cuff garments are fun to knit and offer a truly organic method of getting vertical stripes in a hand knit garment without having to knit intarsia bobbin-work, or fair-isle color work. Yet, when a garment is knit cuff-to-cuff, there is nearly never a shoulder seam because the whole point of the garment is to knit it sideways, each row extending over the shoulder from one bottom edge to the other, then back again. The neck-back must be bound off--it is the fabric selvedge, shown in red below--so these garments aren't quite as loose as circle knit garments, yet nonetheless, cuff-to-cuff sweaters can offer a pretty high dose of slipping and sliding.

Dolman (aka "batwing") sleeves
Sometimes patterns are offered for garment with dolman sleeves, knit bottom-to-top, then grafted shut along the long sleeve-top seam and right along the shoulder too. Like the cuff-to-cuff, such a design usually offers at least some firmness along the shoulder line by having the back of the neck bound off, but can also suffer from sliding.

Some solutions

The simplest, most time-tested solution is either to create a sturdy seam at the shoulder PLUS bind off the neck back OR to knit a garment from the "exception" list such as yoked or raglan. Yet, this is no help if you've already knit a slipping slider, or if you simply adore a garment construction which inherently slips and slides.

Slip stitch

This is probably the easiest fix for an already-made sweater which wants to slip and slide off the shoulders. Run a line of non-stretching yarn across the top of the shoulders and the back of the neck. This is usually done with a crochet hook, applying the yarn in a slip stitch.

TECHknitting blog has covered slip stitching in the context of firming the stretchy edge of a garter stitch scarf, and the idea is identical here. Rather than traveling along the edge of the fabric, however, the slip stitch is worked across the back of the neck and the top of the shoulders. Below is an illustration showing a line of slip stitch worked across the interior of a knit fabric. There is nothing to stop you from running two or even more parallel lines of slip stitch if the garment requires--a large shawl collar rising directly out of a neck back, for example, or a circle knit garment with no other provision in the pattern for a shoulder seam.

Slip stitch to tighten a loose neck back
or a too-soft shoulder seam

PS: the slip stitch trick works pretty well to tighten other loose parts too: sweater and mitten cuffs, loose and floppy bottom bands, hats too large and so on.

Ribbon or fabric tape sewn into the shoulder seam

Another traditional method, although now not much used, is to sew in a line of grosgrain ribbon or twill fabric tape along the shoulder seam. In a modern variation, the shoulder seam on garments made of commercially knit fabric is serged together with a narrow strip of fabric tape (sheer or twill) serged in along the seam also for a three-layer fabric sandwich.

The ribbon/tape prevents stretching, helps distribute the stress and generally preserves the garment--we have quite old sweaters in our family which incorporate a ribbon and these have held up well over the years.

Sewing grosgrain ribbon over a seam
from the inside of the garment

The stitch to use for sewing the ribbon or the tape along the shoulder top is the overcast stitch, worked in little tiny stitches all along both long edges of the ribbon, pushing the sewing needle through the plies (split the plies) of the yarn so that the stitches do not show on the outside. This is the method I would use to correct the droop and stretch of a garment previously grafted (rather than seamed) shut at the shoulder. This is also a good trick for a drop shoulder garment.

A garment with a ribbon sewn along the shoulder seam is rock solid and will not slip. A large sweater-coat might even warrant the ribbon being sewn along the neck back too--and it might be wise to use a rather wide ribbon for this--perhaps as wide as 1 1/2 inches, or even more. A neck-back ribbon is located so it runs over the neck-bone (the large bone at the top of your spine / base of your neck)

Making a too-large neck hole smaller by re-knitting the neck band

If too many stitches were picked up around the neck opening, OR if the neck band was knit too high (too many rows/rounds) without sufficient decreases, the result is the same: A ruffling and loose neck band. This is tedious to fix, but hardly difficult: pull out (frog) the band and do it again, on fewer stitches or with more decreases.

Another recipe for a too-large neck opening is when the neck band was knit too shallow (too few rows/rounds). The cure is easy: Take out the bind-off, and add a few more rows or rounds, remembering to add decreases when appropriate. This cure will surely work, regardless of the original size of the neck opening--you can work the neck band as high as needed: at the extreme, you can build the neck up into a mock turtleneck or even a full turtle neck--maybe not what you set out to make, but these neck styles are certainly not going let the garment slide around.

Correcting a sliding boat collar (slit neck)

For a slit neck which will not stay put, consider sewing in two little ribbons, one on each side of the neck. Alternatively, knit two short little straps and sew one in to the inside on either side of the neck. Where these ribbons or knit straps peek out at the shoulder, they will look like camisole straps. Either of these cures will surely cure "slide-itis" in your boat necks.

A final point: seaming

We'll end with a final point: just how DO you make sturdy non-stretching shoulder seams? IMHO, the three best ways are--

Slip stitch: first bind off each shoulder using the ordinary chain bind off, then slip stitch the shoulder seams shut from the inside (this is the same slip stitch as the "neat little edging," or the slip stitch illustrated above, only worked through both layers of fabric at the shoulder top)
Back stitch: first bind off each shoulder using the ordinary chain bind off, then simply sew the shoulder seam shut from the inside using the back stitch and working through both layers of fabric at the shoulder top. Use a dull-pointed needle and work between the stitches, not through the plies.
Use the three-needle bind off: for this trick, hold the live stitches for each shoulder together on their two needles, the front fabric face of each piece touching, then use a third needle to bind off through two stitches (one from the front needle, one from the back needle) at the same time. For further information, go to the illustrated post about three needle bind off.

Good knitting--TK
* * *
This is fifth in a series on garment correction. The others in this series are:

Part 1: My sweater is too wide

Part 2: My sweater is too long, my sweater is too short

Part 3:My sweater is too tight under the arms/at the bust/chest--the magic of gussets

Part 4: My hat is too loose

Part 6 (still to come): My sweater is too small around my middle

How I cured garter stitch border flip: another method for encouraging garter stitch borders to lay flat

2011-08-27T09:51:00.002-05:00

7 illustrations, click any illustration to enlarge

Now the bands don't flip,
so jacket can be worn open

Recently, I completed a lacy little jacket with garter stitch front bands. The pattern called for garter stitch bands knit "as you go."

Experience indicated that this design would end up with the bands flipping backwards as if on a lengthwise hinge, a situation I privately think of as a "flip hinge." Specifically, a "flip hinge" is always going to be created along the column where a garter band (border) meets a stockinette-type fabric. Along this column, the garter stitch borders will fold back and flip so far under the stockinette fabric as to be invisible. (This is not just true of front bands, as on this little jacket, but also true where ever a garter stitch border is called for--whether a sweater, scarf, shawl or afghan block.)

In past posts, TECHknitting blog has offered two cures for this problem: zig-zag bands and facings. Both of these solutions really do cure flip. Yet, neither of these cures quite suited the style of the little lacy sweater. There was significant shaping alongside the front bands, so the zig-zag method would not have worked, and a facing would have been too bulky for the style of the garment. What to do?

Combining a couple of TECH-tricks resulted in a pretty good 2-part cure. It's not perfect: serious blocking was also required, and even now a very slight tendency to flip remains. Yet the situation has been so substantially improved that the jacket can be worn open, as shown in the photo above.

Intro

The first part of the cure involved advance planning. As the garment was knit, the garter stitch border was lengthened to match the abutting stockinette fabric. The second part involved the finishing process--adding a column of stitches with a crochet hook all along the flip-hinge column, thus strengthening and neutralizing the fabric along this line. The blocking followed.

Why lengthen the garter stitch border?

Do you wonder why lengthening a garter stitch band would combat flip? Garter stitch is actually shorter, row for row, than stockinette. In stockinette, the stitches lay smooth and long but in garter stitch the stitches are diverted into the thickness of the fabric. In other words, any one knitted stitch can either be thick or it can be long. Because the stitches in a garter stitch fabric are busy being thicker, they end up shorter.

When a short fabric is knit row-for-row alongside a longer one, the shorter one (the garter stitch border) pulls the longer one (the adjoining stockinette fabric) into a sort of a crescent. This stress is one (but not the only!) cause of band flipping. By lengthening the garter stitch band of the little lacy jacket, this particular stress was removed, so there was less tension to cause flipping in the first place.

How to lengthen the garter stitch band: short rows

(Note that in all the below illustrations, the BLUE stitches are in the garter stitch band, while the RED stitches are in the abutting stockinette fabric.)

To lengthen, short rows were inserted on the jacket's garter stitch band after every 10th row, per the schematic below. (This ratio has worked pretty well for me over the years. Yet I have never actually taken the time to measure the length difference between stockinette and garter stitch fabrics. Your experience may very well lead you to choose a different frequency at which to insert short rows into a garter band.)

Added short rows illustrated in white

For further information about short rows, here are two posts: the first post covers the theory of short rows while the second post covers several different ways to make short rows. The kind used on this project are called "wrap and lift," the third kind covered in the how-to post (scroll).The "wraps" were formed around the first stitch of the stockinette of the jacket front, NOT the last stitch of the garter fabric of the band. In other words, the the band was always knitted full width.

Sometimes, especially in a loosely knit work, merely lengthening the garter stitch band is so successful, that nothing more remains to be done to prevent flipping other than a serious blocking. However, I was pretty sure that with this cotton jacket, more was required, so it was on to the second step--the stabilizing column of stitches.

How to add the stabilizing column of stitches

along the "mini tube" of the flip hinge

This step was done with a crochet hook and a length of running yarn. It is essentially a trick of crocheting a column of slip stitches onto the column where the flipping wants to take place.

Specifically, the last column of the garter stitch front band where it meets the stockinette fabric of the garment is the column acting as the flip hinge. If you poke at this column, you will discover this hinge column is actually a mini-tube.

This mini-tube in the fabric arises because the garter stitch is thick, but the stockinette is not. Where a thick fabric meets a thinner one, the ladder from each row of yarn must be "drawn in" from the thicker to the thinner. Because these ladders are being drawn in from the two opposite faces of the garter stitch fabric, one after another, they form this mini-tube.

The ladders of the mini-tube are illustrated in green below.

If you have a sample handy, you might like to poke a crochet hook into this tube and see for yourself. Your set-up should look like the illustration below.

Mini-tube with crochet hook inserted

Once the crochet hook has been inserted into the ladders of mini-tube, the running yarn is drawn through the tube in a series of crocheted chain stitches, working down the tube, ladder by ladder. If this makes no sense to you, no worries: step-by-step illustrated instructions follow.

The work is turned so that the INSIDE of the band is facing you, which means that the stockinette fabric facing you will be the PURLED face--the REVERSE stockinette on the inside of the garment. As a result of turning, the blue garter fabric formerly illustrated on the right is now on the left.

The crochet hook catches a loop in the running yarn, illustrated in gold in the picture below.

This loop is drawn downward THROUGH mini-tube, below the ladder in green marked "1." Next, the crochet hook is pushed UP in the air on the OUTSIDE of the mini tube, so that it now passes in FRONT of ladder 1, with the golden loop remaining parked around its barrel. In other words, the loop is parked around the hook barrel and therefore is forced to remain stuck in position below ladder 1, as shown, while the hook itself is free to rise up on the outside of the mini-tube, above ladder 1. Finally, the crochet hook again catches the running yarn.

The crochet hook is next pulled downward, taking the running yarn with it in a new loop. The hook with its running yarn will pass in FRONT of ladder 1, and will pass through the first golden loop made, and will then be pulled BELOW the ladder marked "2."

This second loop is again left parked around the barrel of the crochet hook just as the first loop was, while the hook is again pushed UP in the air on the OUTSIDE of the mini tube, so that it now passes in front of ladder 2. Again, the crochet hook catches the running yarn, as illustrated.

These steps are then repeated. So, for example, for the next step, the crochet hook will form a new loop out of the running yarn--the third loop--and will again pull this loop down, passing in front of ladder 2, through the second golden loop, and down below ladder 3, where it will again be left parked around the hook barrel, while the crochet hook again goes up the outside of the mini tube in search of the running yarn for loop 4.

This action will be repeated over and over, each new loop drawn in FRONT of the preceding ladder and THROUGH the preceding loop--the new loop of running yarn therefore going through TWO loops each time--the old gold loop left parked around the hook-barrel and the next green ladder below.

At the end of this process, you will have two ends to work in, one at the top, and one at the bottom of each band. However, these are easy to skim into the chain stitches you've made in the mini-tube.

The added stitches
form a chain

All this crocheting eventually forms a continuous chain of stitches which runs lengthwise through the core and along the back face of the mini-tube. In the photo to the left, the stitches of this chain has been picked out in gold highlighting, so that you can see what it looks like in the real world.

By using your crochet hook to stuff these chain stitches behind and into the core of the mini-tube column, the flip hinge action of that column is pretty much disabled. In other words, the golden stitches help prevent the flip action of the mini-tube column and therefore help prevent the bordering garter stitches from flipping back.

As mentioned above, this trick really isn't complete until you severely BLOCK the garment--without blocking, the golden stitches simply won't be sufficient to stop the flip. However, with these stitches added, and with the blocking, the garter borders will lay, well... perhaps not perfectly flat, but a LOT flatter with a LOT LESS flipping than without the operation--flat enough to wear the garment open, at any rate, as shown by the opening photo.

One final note: where the short rows are, the rhythm of the fabric is disturbed. However, the mini-tube does continue through the disturbance. This is because, as stated above, the band is to be knit full-width, with the wrap going around the first stockinette stitch, not around the last garter stitch. If you poke around with your crochet hook, you will find where the tube continues, even through the disturbance.

Good knitting! --TK

PS: (For a more in-depth view of the little lacy jacket, you can go to the Ravelry project page for the garment.)

I-cord with added curl (and maybe beads, also)

2011-07-25T00:48:00.005-05:00

Gardening (as it does every summer) has taken the front seat here at chezTECH. As a consequence, knitting has no power over me just now, and the blog is on vacation.

However...someone asked a question on Ravelry recently which caught my eye--a question about making curly I-cord. As it happens, one method for making this recently revealed itself to me. So, taking time from the garden here's a little mid-summer post on one way of making I-cord curly (for glasses-cords, necklaces, edging and the like).

Curly I-cord "in the wool"
(lace weight mohair, cord made on an
embellish knit mill, size 6 beads)

Step 1: Make a length of LOOSELY knit I-cord. If you are knitting the cord by hand, use needles larger than normal for that weight yarn. If making the cord on a mill, where the needle size cannot be changed, use thinner yarn than normal to get the loose cord required for this trick. Also, The I-cord must be at least 4 stitches, a three stitch one won't work very well.

Step 2: To make the cord curly, the basic trick is very similar to the crochet hook method for tightening a ladder in of loose stitches in decreases or a column of loose stitches knit stitches in ribbing. Specifically: pick a "ladder" between two columns of stitches as the one to operate on. If you should happen to have a ladder caused by the "gap around the back"" (such as sometimes happens when making I-cord by hand) choose that ladder. In the below illustration, a four-stitch I-cord is being curled up, the ladder being operated upon is shown in pink.

Step 3: Inserting a crochet hook into the pink ladder between two stitches, draw the next rung of the ladder through the first. Continue in this manner until you reach the top. In the below illustration, the original four-stitch I-cord is in the process of getting a fifth column added: its two pink stitches have already latched up out of the pink ladder.


Ladder (pink) being latched up

As you latch up the ladder, the I-cord will curl up because the new pink column you're hooked up is MUCH MUCH tighter and therefore MUCH MUCH shorter than the other four columns. Being shortest, it forces the other, longer columns to spiral around it, and voila: curly I-cord. Of course, the entire cord gets shorter, so make the original (uncurled) cord longer than you need, to account for this.

A tip for curlier cords: Just as curly hair will be curlier when twirled around a finger so a curly I-cord will be curlier when twirled up, too. If you are making a closed shape (necklace) twirl up the cord over your finger before joining the two ends to permanently set the curl. If you are making an open shape, such as a tiny scarf, then twirl up the cord every now and then as you wear it, to remind it of its duty. If you wish to use this for an edging, twirl up the cord, as tight as you like, then tack down the cord to the edge, touching down at least once in every curl. (If you leave the cord un-twirled, it can be more wavy than curly--which is also a nice look for an edging.)

Another tip: If you like, you can bead the cord by using a very small crochet hook, small enough to fit a bead upon. As illustrated below, insert the bead over the hook, then draw up the next stitch in the ladder. Once that stitch is drawn up as shown, you can slide the bead off the crochet hook onto the stitch. The following stitch would be drawn up the usual way. The below illustration shows one bead slipped onto every third stitch (ie: every third row).

Beads being added every third row

Good knitting!

--TK
You have been reading "I cord with a curl" on TECHknitting blog.

My hat is too loose...

2011-05-12T21:18:00.000-05:00

"My hat is too big! How can I tighten it?" is a question frequently asked on community knitting boards. Luckily, there are two good options, but today's post starts with two options which do NOT work, yet which are frequently suggested.

1) Blocking the hat smaller The idea behind this advice is that if you wet the hat and then block it smaller, the hat will stay that way. It is true that thoroughly wetting a too-loose hat, then firmly yanking it lengthwise will make it both longer and narrower. It is also true that pushing the fabric together and drying it in that scrunched-up position will make the hat look smaller. Yet, sadly, although blocking can do many magical things (such as make your knitting look more professional by evening out the stitches, or opening up lace) it cannot make things smaller. Logic will tell you that any "smallerizing" you were able to achieve by blocking will be undone as soon as you put the hat on and wear it. Plus, blocking really works best on wool, anyway, so if your hat is made of anything else, fuggedaboudit, as they say in New York.

2) Felting the hat smaller The idea here is to shrink the hat by felting it smaller. It is indisputably true that felting will shrink woolens. However, imho, this advice is ill-advised. Felting is a wild and uncontrolled process which goes very very fast when it finally happens, so getting the hat to shrink "just so" would be a matter of great luck. A too-small, too-short, too-stiff object--a sort of a felt bowl--is just as likely to be the result of the experiment. It is true that there are commercially felted hats, and even commercially-made felted jackets, but fitted felted garments are cut out of sheets of felted knitting and then sewn together. Home-made felted clogs are a popular exception, as are felted mittens, but clogs and mittens are meant to fit loosely--it is not necessary to have them sit "just so" around one's feet or hands, as a hat must sit around one's brow.

The one almost-exception to all this occurs with superwash wool. Of course, the whole POINT of superwash wool is that it does NOT felt, yet many knitters may not realize that putting this sort of yarn into a dryer helps it regain its bounce and size--a superwash hat laid out to dry will be much bigger than one machine-dried. So, while throwing a superwash hat into the dryer is not felting per se, it is "shrinking" through using a clothes drier--an almost exception to the don't-felt concept.

Now we come to two ideas which DO work.

1. Lining the hat This idea is 100% guaranteed to work 100% of the time. The idea is to make a lining--either a full lining or a headband style lining, which does fit your head exactly as you would like. An excellent fabric to use for this lining is polar fleece. Polar fleece is stretchy, non-itchy, comes in various weights, and best of all, it does not fray (and so, does not need to be hemmed). The lining is then sewn inside the too-large hat, easing the excess fabric of the hat to the lining, one little stitch at a time. Because the lining was made to fit your head exactly, the resulting hat must also fit your head exactly. There are more complete details about the process in these two posts:
Lining a hat, headband style
Lining a hat, fully-lined style

2. Elastic Sometimes, lining a hat will not work, either because of its style--a slouch-hat, for example, with no real "band" around the forehead, or because a sewn in band is not a good fit for the style of the hat--a lacy cap, for example. For such hats, you may wish to consider thread elastic, worked into the edge for several rows or rounds. The how-to can be found in this post on tightening up socks--scroll down a bit and you will find thread elastic discussed.

Good knitting!

This post the fourth in a series on garment correction. The other posts in this series are:
Part 1: My sweater is too wide
Part 2: My sweater is too long, my sweater is too short
Part 3:My sweater is too tight under the arms/at the bust/chest--the magic of gussets
Part 5: My sweater slips off my shoulders
Part 6 (still to come): My sweater is too small around my middle

--TK
You have been reading TECHknitting blog on "my hat is too big!"

My sweater is too tight under the arms, or at the chest/bust--the magic of gussets

2011-05-09T14:25:00.006-05:00

If the bust/chest area of a sweater is too tight, you can fix this by messing around with the armhole length. Are you surprised? In fact, the fit of the upper body of a garment is very highly affected by the length of the armhole, and a great deal of the designer's attention is paid to the exact measurements in this complex, saddle-shaped area where many seams run together, and the arm meets the body of the sweater.

The great thing about the upper body/armhole connection is that the entire fit around the bust/chest can be eased by lengthening the armhole (and, of course, the fit around the upper arm can also be eased in this manner). Although lengthening the armhole sounds like a project which would require re-knitting the upper part of the garment as well as reknitting the sleeves, this is luckily not the case IF (and only if) the garment was made in pieces (has seams).

To lengthen the armhole, and thus add ease to the upper body area (and to the upper arm area, as well) we are going to use a gusset. A gusset is simply an inlaid piece of fabric specifically designed to add ease to the applied area. Our specific gusset, an underarm gusset for a sweater, is a diamond-shaped piece of fabric knit from the same yarn as the garment itself, then inserted (sewn in) along the top of the side seam and the top of the arm seam.

This magic diamond-shaped insert adds ease where it is needed, and thus saves you having to reknit a substantial portion of the garment. Although the line drawings below shows a gusset set into a set-in sleeve garment, the gusset trick actually works with every shoulder style--drop-shoulder, raglan, etc. This is because it is not added at the shoulder itself, but under the arm at the side seam, and so creates no distortion in the shoulder style selected. (And for the historically-minded, a gusset is a traditional method of constructing ganseys.)

As to how large to make the gusset, you must first determine how total many inches of ease you want to add around the garment at the bust/chest (or around the upper arm, if this is where the tightness is). You would then work each gusset until the total width at the widest point of EACH gusset is ONE HALF the total added ease desired, so that both gussets together add up to the total ease required around the circumference of the garment.

As to knitting the gusset itself:
Prep step: cast on, then work two rows of 2 st I-cord.
row 1: k1, m1, k1 (3 stitches on needle)
row 2: purl.
row 3: k1, m1, k to with 1 st of opp edge, m1, k1.
row 4, purl.
REPEAT rows 3 and 4 until the diamond is HALF as wide across as the total number of inches of ease you seek, as explained above.
row 5: k across with no shaping.
row 6: purl across with no shaping.
row 7: k1, SYTK (or any other left leaning decrease you prefer), k to within 3 sts of other edge, k2tog, k1.
row 8: purl.
REPEAT rows 7 and 8 until 5 sts remain on a purl row.
row 9: k1, work a three stitch decrease (scroll) on the middle three stitches, k1.
row 10: purl
row 11: k1, k2tog, 2 stitches on needle
finishing step: work 2 rows of 2 st I-cord, bind off

Below is a photo of a gusset knitted according to the above instructions, the widest measurement is 17 stitches.

When you come to sew the gusset inside the garment, pick out (remove) the seam in the underarm area of your sweater (top of body, top of arm) beyond what you will need to sew in the gusset--this gives you some maneuvering room. To make sure of your gusset placement, begin the sewing centered on the center two (no shaping) rows (i.e.: rows 5 and 6) as shown in the illustration two below. Resew the body and sleeve seams above and below the gusset insertion and wear your remodeled sweater in health and good fortune.

Here are some tips:

1) As to the actual sewing-in of the gusset, the illustration shows an overcast stitch worked from the outside, but this is only to give the general idea of sewing, and to maintain the perspective common to all the illustrations, namely from the back of the right arm. The overcast stitch worked from the outside would actually be a poor choice. Far better would be to sew (or slip stitch!) the gusset from the inside. (Aaaand--if you had slip stitched the seams, rather than mattress-stitched them, taking out the seams would have been easier in the first place!)

Click this (or any!) illustration to enlarge

2) The sewing (or slip stitching!) from the inside is done at the rate of 1/1 (one stitch of the gusset is sewn/slip stitched to one stitch of the body or arm)

3) The instructions included in this post for knitting the gusset result in a utility sort of a gusset which adds width in a relatively concentrated area--just at the underarm. If the problem extends past this area, work the gusset relatively longer (i.e." a longer diamond) by adding more plain rows between increases/decreases. This will add more ease in a longer stretch of both the body and the arm. Of course, if the problem is mainly in the upper arm, you can make the gusset shorter at the body end while knitting it longer along the arm seam. If the reverse is true--if the body is tight but the upper arm is pretty much OK in circumference, reverse the procedure--making the arm part of the gusset relatively shorter than the body portion to provide bust shaping with very little ease added to the arm circumference. In these ways, the gusset can be customized to your exact ease requirements.

4) For supergeeks: If you are a demon for symmetry, begin the gusset with a provisional cast on in the very middle of the gusset, then follow the directions for the decrease portion of the gusset. When the first half is done, remove the provisional cast on to re-gain live sts on your needle, then work the decrease portion of the gusset again. As you can see in the photo of the gusset, above, the decrease portion at the top of the gusset looks prettier than the increase portion at the bottom of the gusset, so by working both ways from the middle, you'll get two pretty decrease portions while avoiding the increase portion altogether.

Finally we'll end with a note on gussets at the crotch, rather than under the arm. Crotch gussets are a great idea for adding ease in an often-tight area. These are quite common in eastern-style pants and leggings. While not common in western clothing, they are slowly becoming available as a specialty item. Those who knit longies (either baby-bottom leggings or children's/adult leggings) can add a gusset to the crotch area in the identical manner as shown in this post for underarms, thus easing the entire garment for better fit, as well as the side benefit of moving the seams to lower-stress locations.

--TK
Part 1: My sweater is too wide
Part 2: My sweater is too long, my sweater is too short
Part 4: My hat is too loose
Part 5 : My sweater slips off my shoulders
Part 6 (still to come): My sweater is too small around my middle

My sweater is too long, my sweater is too short...

2011-05-08T05:46:00.014-05:00

Changing the length of a garment is actually fairly easy (at least conceptually). The technical details are in a previous TECHknitting post called "length reassignment surgery." The purpose of this post is really only to provide an updated link for folks (and they are many) who have not been able to find the surgery link through a search-engine search: the title of THIS post is directly on point, whereas the title of the surgery post was not very findable.

--TK
This is the second in a series on garment correction. The others in this series include
Part 1: My sweater is too wide
Part 3:My sweater is too tight under the arms/at the bust/chest--the magic of gussets
Part 4: My hat is too loose
Part 5: My sweater slips off my shoulders
Part 6 (still to come): My sweater is too small around my middle

My sweater is too wide...

2011-05-06T20:59:00.007-05:00

TECHknitting blog is starting a new series on garment correction, inspired by a question on Ravelry. The first in the series is: "my sweater is too wide, how can I fix it?"

There are two main methods for fixing a too-wide sweater. The most obvious (although not the most knitterly) method of fixing this is to get yourself to a serger, and simply take out a whack of sweater. This may seem like odd advice, but when you come to realize that many commercial sweaters are in fact serged together from flat-knit sheets or tubes of knitting, it becomes less odd. Here is a link to a sweater "saved by the serger," knit by my friend and fellow-Madisonian, the Ravelry hall-of-famer Rududu. You can see that Rududu narrowed the sleeves on a mohair garment by simply serging them smaller.

For a more knitterly approach, consider reworking the knit fabric. As you know, the same number of stitches in ribbing are substantially narrower than the same number in stockinette, because ribbing "draws up." TECHknitting blog has already shown how to rework stockinette into ribbing in the context of rolling stockinette scarves, and the cure is the same for a too-wide sweater. A panel or two of ribbing in the middle of a stockinette field will narrow the entire garment.

If, on a bottom-up garment, the neckband has already been put on, it must be taken off again, and the same applies to the need to remove the bottom band on a top-down garment. Once the band is off, pick out the cast-off until you have live stitches again, then rework the stockinette into ribbing using a crochet hook to rehook-up the dropped down columns (again, instructions are here). You can make a single panel in the middle of a garment pattern or two panels, with a strip of plain stockinette between, or any arrangement you might like. Work a few columns per panel into ribbing and try the garment on again. Still too wide? Add more columns (or panels!) of ribbing. Of course, you can try on the garment as you rework the fabric into ribbing, so you won't overshoot the mark.

And, naturally, you can tighten up too-loose sleeves by this trick also.

--TK
You have been reading TECHknitting blog on: "fixing a too-wide sweater."

This is the first in a series on garment correction. The others in this series include
Part 2: My sweater is too long, my sweater is too short
Part 3:My sweater is too tight under the arms/at the bust/chest--the magic of gussets
Part 4: My hat is too loose
Part 5: My sweater slips off my shoulders
Part 6 (still to come): My sweater is too small around my middle

Items started along a long edge--how best to cast on

2011-05-02T11:41:00.000-05:00

A perennial question on community knitting boards is how best to cast on along a very long edge, such as a scarf made edge-to-edge (as opposed to top-to-bottom) or a wide afghan made all in one piece. IMHO, the best way would be to provisionally cast-on the long edge, using COWYAK or the crochet method. Afterwards, when the garment is finished, take out the provisional cast-on and work a bind-off to finish that edge. This has two advantages.

1. The tension of the edge can be adjusted afterwards to suit the tension of the garment
2. The two edges will match perfectly, both tension-wise and appearance-wise, having both been bound off by the same method.

(In fact, is my humble opinion that this is also the best way to cast on for pretty much ALL garment knitting--such as a bottom-up sweater. In other words, cast on provisionally, work the body of the garment, and only afterwards add the bottom band. You can then freely experiment with different bands--hems, ribbings, etc. Also by this method, The top and bottom bands will thus match along their edges, and the tension of the whole bottom band can be adjusted once you have a better idea of how the garment fits, and how the bottom band should best be tensioned to best fit the knitting of the body of the garment. A further advantage to this method is that it also allows you to fine-tune the length of the finished garment, as well as of the cuffs for bottom-up work; or the tension and height of the neck band on a top-down garment.)

--TK

A beautiful method of picking up stitches for a second fabric layer

2011-04-10T15:04:00.003-05:00

Here is a beautiful method of picking up stitches on the inside of a stockinette fabric, so as to create a second, inner layer of fabric for facings or the like.

Step 1: run a column of reverse stockinette (ie: purls) where you want to start the new fabric. You can either create this column of purls as-you-go, or insert it afterwards (possibly easier) by dropping a column and hooking it back up. When you flip the fabric over, this has created a single column of KNIT stitches on the reverse stockinette face of the fabric.

Step 1: on the reverse stockinette face of the fabric, you will have
created a single column of knit stitches (darker green in illustration)

Step 2: insert a small crochet hook SIDEWAYS into each stitch of this column and draw through a loop

Step 2: Using a crochet hook, draw loops through the column of
knits as shown

Step 3: Deposit each loop as it is made onto a knitting needle (circular or double pointed). You will now have a line of stitches picked up on the inside of the garment which magically seem to grow right out of the row of knits. You will not believe how completely and utterly invisible the pick up is--invisible from both sides of the fabric. (I've drawn it in pink here so you can see it, but when this is worked in the same color as the stockinette fabric, it disappears.)

Step 3: Each loop is deposited on a circular needle or dpn
as it is created. Although the picked up stitches are shown
in a contrasting color for illustration purposes, if the same
color is used, the pick-up line is perfectly invisible from
either side of the fabric.

Once your stitches are picked up, you simply knit away.

In the wool: the fabric to the right (at right angles to the line of knits)
was picked up through the line of knits and created as described in this post

This trick can be used for many purposes, but a really wonderful use is to make a little knit facing for a zipper. The zipper tape lies inside, between the two layers of fabric, for a very tailored look.

A note on gauge--
Obviously, this method involves picking up one stitch for each row. Yet, this might make the fabric sag and gap, as row gauge is smaller than stitch gauge in knitting (more rows/in than sts/in). This is solved by using a smaller needle and knitting tighter, to bring the st gauge of the facing in line with the row gauge of the garment. If your yarn is too heavy for this trick, such that the resulting fabric would be too stiff, use a thinner yarn in matching color.

--TK

Evenly spacing increases or decreases on an uneven stitch count

2011-04-02T10:06:00.003-05:00

Today's TECHknitting post shows two quick solutions to the common problem of placing decreases evenly spaced on a stitch count not evenly divisible--these tricks work for spacing increases, too.

For example, suppose you want to space 8 decreases, evenly spaced, on a hat top of 93 stitches. 93 stitches isn't evenly divisible by 8. The nearest even multiple of 8 is 88, which would be 8 decreases spaced 11 stitches apart, with 5 excess stitches left over.

1) Random decreasing before you get to the decrease rounds

In this solution, in the last few rounds before the decrease rounds begin, the 5 stitches would randomly be decreased away by working two stitches together at five random points. By the time you get to the decrease rounds, you would have 88 stitches: 8 markers placed 11 stitches apart. This is the most common solution, I think, and it works very well in garter stitch (use k2togs), reverse stockinette (on the k side, use k2togs, on the purl side, p2togs) and other bumpy fabrics. However, in stockinette, especially in bulky yarns (relatively few stitches) this has the potential to show somewhat as a disturbance in the fabric.

2) Differentially beginning the decrease round

Perhaps better looking in an all-stockinette fabric is this trick: work the first decrease round in pattern, but don't work all the decreases--in this differential beginning to the decrease round, only the excess stitches are decreased away. In our example of 93 stitches and 8 decreases, place your markers in the last round before the decreases as follows: 3 markers 11 stitches apart (light blue on diagram, 33 stitches accounted for) and 5 markers 12 stitches apart (dark blue on diagram, the remaining 60 stitches accounted for). On the first decrease round, decrease only on the 5 markers at 12 stitches apart by k2tog'ing the green stitches--this makes each set of 2 green stitches into 1 stitch, which gets rid of the 5 excess stitches. You would then have 8 markers, each of which is 11 stitches from the next marker, and can go on to decrease evenly on each following decrease round.

click to enlarge

In my analysis, this trick-of-the-eye works because when the decreases are in the correct column, there is no clue to the eye that they don't all start on the same row. You can see it if you look closely, but since the decrease pattern is undisturbed, the eye assumes symmetry.

the decreases on this hat top start on a different rows

I find that this works not only on hat tops (as shown above) but also on raglan decreases, sock gusset decreases and so on. Also, differentially beginning works for increases, also. With this trick under your belt, it is not necessary to cast on evenly divisible multiples for hats, sweaters, etc., freeing you to make garments which fit better.

--TK

PS: For hats with a seam, put the excess stitches in the back for slightly greater fullness where it is needed--the (rounder) back of the head, rather than on the (flatter) forehead.

PPS: 8 evenly spaced decreases, worked every other round (one decrease round, followed by a plain round) is the default decrease rate for a hat top. It doesn't always yield a perfectly flat top, however. Switch to smaller needles in the last few rows (as was done in the illustrated hat above) and you'll have more a chance to avoid "knipples" at the hat top.

Respite knitting

2011-03-15T12:54:00.003-05:00

My adopted home state of Wisconsin has been rocked by political unrest I would have thought inconceivable a few short weeks ago. The Japanese earthquake was bad, the tsunami worse, and the nuclear ramifications have me glued to the computer, with three or four news windows open simultaneously. The unrest all over the Middle East brings to mind high school history texts and the year 1848--"the year of revolution" in Europe.

What can I do, as a small person in this sudden upheaval, this messy world? I read carefully, try to send donations where they will do the most good, maybe volunteer for whatever might make a small difference.

Yet I think the most important thing for me personally is to try to shield my children from this news--one is taking an important math final at University as I write this, one is basking in recent acceptance to the college of her choice, the little one is aiming to aim higher at his next science Olympiad event.

These kids will have the weight of this world on their own shoulders soon enough, soon enough. No need to burden them with all this now--boiling nuke rod pools, the possibility that household income will be substantially cut among their friends and neighbors, the effects on their friends' college choices.

Life is uncertain. On your way to the supermarket in Cairo, the revolution erupts. You wake up on a workday in Tokyo and the ground slips out from under you. The bus going downtown in your quiet Midwestern hometown is rerouted because 75,000 people--nurses, firefighters, plumbers, professors, teachers, DMV clerks--are out demonstrating, and the next day, 100,000 are out in the wind and winter weather. Modeling calmness is hard. I feel like a fake.

Thank goodness for a project in hand, for mohair and beads and lace and yarn. For community boards and e-mails and questions about the best way to cast off. Thank goodness for knitting.

TK

Going to Yarnover? I'll be the one in a sweatshirt

2011-03-09T06:00:00.006-06:00

a sweatshirt...

Process knitting

I spend the summer in the garden, but in the winter, I spend a great deal of time knitting--not wardrobe knitting, you understand, but test knitting--knitting to try out ideas.

Most of the test knitting starts OUT as project knitting, yet test knitting and garment knitting don't intersect around here as much as they should. Once a technical problem has been worked out, the solution tends to turn into a TECHknitting blog post, while the garment which birthed it tends to fall into the UFO pile.

Few items larger than a hat have escaped the gravitational pull of the UFO pile in years--not since TECHknitting blog started in the knitting season of 2006 and gave its process knitter author (me) an excellent excuse for never finishing anything. Worse than that even. The blog gave me the excuse to start lots of new things to see how they'll work out. Thus adding to the pile. Sometimes on a daily basis. Of course, I can't pull the needles out of a work in progress, or re-purpose the rest of the yarn bought for the garment. That would be against the rules. That would be admitting defeat. Consequently, not only do I have a black-hole for garments in my UFO pile, but the pile also eats knitting needles. Meanwhile, its gravitational twin is developing from the ever-increasing stash of no-go yarn.

open loop boucle--what was
I thinking?

Sometimes, the UFO pile grows because I've made a poor choice. I'm now working with a open-loop boucle mohair, and must have been insane to buy the yarn. Not that the result isn't lovely--it is, very. Yet open-loop boucle is a very bear to knit (the needle keeps catching in the loop, rather than around the strand). And of course, mohair of any kind is a very bear to unravel. Since test knitting requires plenty of both, there is no combination I could have chosen less suitable. Beautiful as it is, this one is clearly headed for the UFO pile, and sooner rather than later.

Sometimes, test knitting goes so well that I'm tempted to recreate the garment several times--the pocket hats were like that, I think there were 7 in a row, and innumerable little felted purses have been worked up around here. Then I'm reminded of a study I once read. Turns out that making faster and bigger lawn mowers didn't reduce the time folks spent mowing. No indeed. Instead, their lawns got bigger, and they spent the same amount of time mowing, or even more. Faster knitting and better patterns translates to 7 pocket hats rather than one or two; a fleet of little change purses waiting to be wrapped as gifts, but no more progress on the UFO's, alas.

Project knitting

At the end of April, I am going out to teach my first knitting class in over twenty years--Yarnover in Minneapolis, a project of the Minnesota Knitter's Guild. All my existing wardrobe sweaters are ratty and are themselves experiments--no two arms of any one sweater have the same kind (or even same rate!) of increasing, no two socks in the for-wearing fleet have the same kind of heels, my wardrobe features mostly not-fully-successful garment designs (prototypes of sweaters either improved--long since knit and given away) or abandoned after the one prototype. In short, my wardrobe consists mainly of ratty experimental remnants--great for the supermarket, not so good for my first professional knitting outing in two decades (Lord, where does the time go?)

It is clear, is it not, that I must have a new sweater for the occasion?

I've been rummaging the UFO collection, looking for a sweater pretty near completion. Yet while there are three leading candidates, I don't hold out a lot of hope.

I-cord edging by some method
already half-forgotten

The lead contender is a giant gold/green sweater-coat, missing only a bottom trim and a zipper. This was put aside while I cogitated on zippers and trims--I got zippers figured out, but am still messing around with new ways of attaching I-cord to fabric. Attaching I-cord to the live loop edges was a snap, but I'm still messing around with a new trick for attaching to bound off edges. If I just edge it and wear it, I'll forget how I did it--I've pretty much forgotten the live-loop method already. Since spring is sort of coming, as well as sample knitting for Yarnover, there is no time for that kind of knitting/ illustration/ blogging project now. That sweater is probably going to be on hold for a while longer.

prototype of pleating

The second garment is a green alpaca sweater lacking only a collar and sleeves--beautiful silky material knit at 7 (seven!) sts to the inch (!!) on which I am messing around with pleating. However, the first few pleats aren't as pretty as the pleats made last, and I suspect that there might be yet an altogether better way of doing this by a completely different method than any yet tried. The idea of wearing this experiment in front of my fellow teachers and eagle-eyed students, well... What I should do is pull out and re-do, but what I will do is probably let this wallow on the UFO pile a while longer. Or forever. As a perpetual UFO, it'd earn its keep being a pleating prototype. Some version of this pleating will probably emerge some way, some day, but the sweater? I wouldn't lay bets on it. And, do you know, I'm not worried about "wasting" the yarn either--it's so pretty that some day it's sure to earn a spot in the "better yarn" box at the estate sale. Just think how happy it will make some knitter yet unborn.

prototype of beading

The third garment is an experiment in beading by a variety of methods. The first beads put in aren't nearly as nice as the end of the job, and again, I expect there may be an altogether better way of doing this, anyhow. It's the learning curve made visible, it's dejavu all over again.

Franklin Habit on his Panopticon blog featured an imaginary conversation between Albert Einstein and the Queen of England, neatly encapsulating a nearly-circular dialog between a knitter and a knitee. I can go Franklin one better in concept, if not in execution. My internal dialog in the matter of actual project knitting--of actually declaring that I'm done messing around with a technique and it's time for finishing sweaters? That's a dialog between the Red Queen, so logically illogical, and the Mad Hatter, so stuck in time, with no resolution in sight and an ever-growing UFO pile.

Bottom line: if you'll be at Yarnover, and you see a knitting teacher in a sweatshirt? Stop and say "hi" to me, OK?

* * *

Disambiguation:

This is a "humor-style posting" of the "exaggeration type."
I expect to arrive at Yarnover in a sweater.
Probably.

--TK

When two strands of yarn wound together work up unevenly

2011-03-05T08:09:00.002-06:00

(A random Ravelry discussion triggered this post...)

PROBLEM 1--Two different fibers which feed at different rates

When two yarns of different fibers are wound off together, they might be the same LENGTH but not work up at the same RATE. A classic example is a woolen yarn wound together onto a ball with a slippery yarn: silk, perhaps. On the ball, the two yarns look fine--they are the same length, after all. Yet, once the knitting begins, so does the trouble. The wool sticks to itself as woolly wool does, while the silk is, well, you know--silky, and does not stick to anything at all. Excess silk sags throughout the fabric, and pretty soon, a whole length of the silk yarn is sagging to leeward, between the work and the ball.

PROBLEM 2--Fibers which feed at the same rate but are wound at different rates

When two strands of yarn are wound off together but come onto the resulting ball at different tension, it causes the same problem. The two strands may feed off at the same RATE, but they are not the same LENGTH. Stated otherwise, they feed off at the same rate but were not put on at the same rate, making one longer than the other. Result? The shorter strand puckers, the longer strand twists and writhes and sags.

Loose yarn throughout the fabric (loose lengths in pink)

Both problems result in similar fabric, shown above. The pink lengths and dots highlight the looping and twisting and writhing of the longer/slipperier yarn (thinner in the illustration) throughout the fabric, as well as the uneven feed of the running yarn--an unevenness bound to get worse with every passing stitch. (Click on this or any picture to enlarge.)

SOLUTIONS

If winding were eliminated in the first place--if each yarn were knit each from its own ball--then each yarn would feed at its own natural rate and length, so creating an even fabric.

But what do you do when you already have such a ball of two yarns together, either because it was wound together at a knitting shop that way, or because it came from a manufacturer that way?

You could carefully pick apart the two strands and wind each on a separate ball. Although this works, it takes forever. Before going to such lengths (har!) consider the two below options: in the right situation, these might save some hours.

Option 1--Stranding and solo stitches

Remove the excess by looping it up into a solo stitch, stranding the shorter yarn behind. The loop of this solo stitch has further to travel than the stranding running behind it, so the two yarns catch up to one another. This is the same sort of idea as stranded or Fair-Isle knitting.

Shorter yarn stranded behind solo stitch of longer yarn

On the illustration above, the thinner yarn is again the longer/slipperier one causing the trouble. At random places in the fabric--wherever an excess loop of the thinner yarn forms in the running yarn--the shorter thicker yarn has been stranded behind the thinner yarn, and the excess thinner yarn has been concentrated into a solo single-stranded knit stitch. Concentrating the excess of the longer yarn while stranding the shorter evens up the yarns, leaving the other stitches of the fabric even. The thicker yarn, stranded behind, has been colored bright green to make visible how much shorter is its path behind the concentrated excess of the pink loop.

The actual mechanics of creating the solo stitch is simple: grab a loop of excess with your right (working) needle out of the excess longer yarn sagging between the work and the ball and knit one stitch with this excess only. The shorter yarn will automatically strand behind when you knit the following stitch out of both yarns, although you may have to separate the two with your fingers to adjust the tension.

If a single solo stitch using the excess doesn't do it, alternate this trick with ordinary 2-strand stitches along the row until the two yarns feeding in off the ball are evened up. Alternating gives better tension (and looks better) than stranding the shorter yarn behind 2 or 3 solo stitches of the longer all in one spot.

Option 2--Twisting

Remove the excess of the longer yarn--again, the thinner yarn in the illustration below--by twisting up an extra backwards loop of this yarn onto the needle. This is the same sort of idea as a loop cast-on. However, since you don't want to actually increase your stitch count, place a pin or stitch marker at the excess loop to keep track of its location. On the next row or round, eliminate this excess loop by joining it back together with its "mother stitch," using the same sort of idea as a k2tog.

Excess yarn twisted up onto the needle

The illustration above shows that at random places (wherever a loop of excess forms in the running yarn), the excess--colored pink--has been removed from the fabric and concentrated in one spot by twisted up into a loop and placed on the right needle. On the next round, this excess loop is knit together with its own "mother stitch." Each of two lower pink excess loops have already been knitted together with their respective mother stitches, while, the new live pink excess loop just formed will be knit together with its mother stitch (the double-stranded stitch at the arrow) on the next round.

The actual mechanics of this trick involve grabbing a loop of the excess out of the running yarn with your fingers, twisting it, placing it on the right needle and marking it.

Twist variations

The marker is shown as a safety pin, but IRL, far quicker would be several knotted loops of thin yarn kept by, each quickly caught onto the working needle when needed and constantly recycled as each excess loop is eliminated in its turn.

One easy variation to avoid having to making the stitch at all is to simply pass the twisted-up loop over the neighboring stitch to the LEFT as soon as that neighboring stitch is formed. On the downside, this uses up less excess and causes a bump, on the upside it is quick, and in many "art" yarns the bump would pass unnoticed. Passing over is pretty much the equivalent of wrapping the excess yarn around the neck of the newly formed stitch, and you could try it that way, too: passing a newly formed stitch from right needle to left needle, wrapping it with excess yarn, then returning it, wrapped, to the right needle.

A geek variation on the twisting option is to substitute an analog to the "nearly invisible increase" (NII) for the twisting, working the NII with the (pink) excess only. The NII-analog actually gets rid of more excess in each pink stitch than the twist because each excess stitch is longer. Again, though, mark the new loop to avoid inadvertently increasing the stitch count.

Which option when?

I bought 8 cones (!!) of wool, custom-wound of three thin yarns together. Although each yarn is the same fiber, the winding machine occasionally skipped, leaving one yarn either protruding or puckering. Stranding is the better choice in this smooth yarn because twisting would have created a lump. Yet, stranding might look odd on a reversible garment, depending on the yarn and stitch.

On an "art" yarn where the manufacturer had wound two different kinds of fiber together, both options worked. In fact, there were some places where the feed was so uneven that both options were obliged to be worked at the same time--the shorter yarn stranded behind a combo of a solo-stitch PLUS twisted stitch, and this combo repeated sequentially on every alternate stitch for several stitches in a row, several times a round.

--TK
You have been reading TECHknitting blog on: "uneven yarn feed"

Jogless stripes--pretty picture version (part 3 of a series)

2011-03-04T16:37:00.002-06:00

Slip-stitch jogless stripes were the subject of a post way back in January 2007. Then in the spring of 2009, Interweave Knits published an jogless stripe article by me which included the 2007 info plus some new info about barberpole (helix) jogless stripes. The article also came with a video. With the two most recent posts, helix stripes and a link to the video have now been added to this blog, and the only part of the 2009 article not yet reproduced are some pretty pictures of slip-stitch jogless stripes.

These pictures cover the same ground as the 2007 slip-stitch jogless post--identical info--but these new pictures are prettier. Rather than mess with the original post, I'm putting them into a post of their own--maybe these prettier pictures will shed a better light than the old pictures, even though the process is identical.

* * *

Slip-stitch jogless stripes

General directions:

*On color change rounds, change colors by simply knitting the first stitch of the new color as you normally would knit any stitch. Next, knit the rest of the stitches to the end of the round.
On the next round, slip the first stitch of the new color, then knit the rest of the stitches. On every following round, knit every stitch as usual
Repeat from * every time you want to change colors.

Per the illustration below, slipping the stitch at the beginning of the second round (green arrow) pulls that first stitch of the new color up to span both first and second rounds; the last stitch of the previous color gets pulled smaller (orange arrow); and the stitch of the old color in the row below the slipped stitch gets pulled up along with the slip stitch stitch (purple arrow). These forces arrange the stitches into smaller “steps” (black arrows) lessening the contrast between the old color and the new and essentially eliminating the jog.

How the slip stitch makes the stripe jogless

Jogless slip-stitch stripes come in two types: “traveling” and “stationary.” The actual technique is as shown above, and is the same in both, the only difference is the point at which you change color.

TRAVELING stripes

Per the illustration below, if you choose to let the beginning of the round travel one stitch to the left with each color change (orange arrow) then every part of every row will be the same height and have the same number of stitches, and these are the traveling stripes.

Traveling jogless stripes

Here are complete step-by step directions for this type:

On the round before you intend to change colors, insert a stitch marker at the place you intend to change colors.
*On the color change round--slip the marker, then change colors by simply starting to knit with the new color.
On the following round, when you come to the marker, slip it. Then, slip the first stitch of the new color from the left needle to the right needle purlwise (ie: not twisted). Knit all the rest of the stitches of the round.

Knit as many rounds as you desire for the stripe, knitting every stitch. One round before your next color change, shift the marker over one stitch to the left. Make more stripes by repeating from *.

Stationary stripes

If you choose to hold the beginning of the round in the same place, then in the color-change column (orange arrow) each stripe will be one stitch shorter, and these are the stationary stripes.

Stationary jogless stripes

Stationary, closeup

Here are complete step-by step directions for this type:

On the round before you intend to change colors, insert a stitch marker at the place you intend to change colors.
*When you come to a color change round, slip the marker, then change colors by simply starting to knit with the new color.
On the following round, when you come to the marker, slip it. Then, slip the first stitch of the new color from the left needle to the right needle purlwise (ie: not twisted) Knit the rest of the stitches of the round.

Knit as many rounds as you desire for the stripe, knitting every stitch. Make more stripes by repeating from *.

Which stripe where?

The advantage to traveling stripes is that every part of every round is the same height; the disadvantage is that the round beginning "travels" one stitch leftward with every color change (illustration 10) Also, with traveling stripes, a faint spiral pattern will develop along the diagonal of the color change. This spiral pattern is more obvious in heavy fabrics and less obvious in thinner fabrics, so the traveling stripes are better for thinner stripes and/or thinner wool.

The advantage to stationary stripes is that the color change remains in the same place; the disadvantage is that at one part of each round, that round will dip one stitch lower. (illustration 12). With thin stripes, and/or in thin wool, you'd soon have substantially fewer stitches along this column, so the fabric might start to "pull" along that column of stitches. However, with thick wool (5 st/in or fewer) and/or thicker stripes, this isn't an issue because knitting stretches enough to solve the problem. Therefore, stationary stripes are best for thick wool and/or thick stripes.

-TK

Helix (barberpole) stripes, part 2 of a jogless stripe series

2011-03-01T06:00:00.010-06:00

Helix or barberpole stripes are completely jogless, and, unlike any other method of jogless stripes may be made as narrow as a single row. Although this makes them incredibly useful in the right situation, they are somewhat of a pain to knit, which is why they probably aren't seen more often.

In their classic form,barberpole stripes are 1 row high, and usually 3 or 4 colors. Each stripe starts at a different point on the garment, then the stripes chase one another around the spiral architecture of the knitted garment, like the stripes on an old-fahioned barber pole. Because of this arrangement into spiral layers, the colors never meet on the same level, so there is no jog.

Barberpole stripes are usually made on double pointed needles (dpn’s). Here’s the ...

How to

Suppose we want three single-color stripes, as in the above photo. For three stripes, we'll use three needles for the work and a fourth to knit around.
To determine the number to cast on, divide the total number of stitches by the total number of colors. Example: our little tube has 36 stitches and three colors, red, white and blue: 36÷3=12 stitches of each color.
Onto needle 1, using white, cast on 1/3 the total number of stitches (12, in our example) Repeat onto needle 2 with blue and again onto 3 with red: 36 total stitches cast on, three needles with 12 stitches on each. If your total stitch count is not evenly divisible by your number of needles, no big deal—within a couple of stitches is OK.
Choose your color arrangement: once chosen, it can never change--the same colors will chase one another around and around the spiral for the entire knitting of the garment.

In the above illustration, the work began with each needle cast on with a different color. Then, the white yarn was knit over the red, the red over the blue, and the blue over the white. In the next round the blue yarn was knitted over the white, the white over the red, and the red over the blue. Once the order is established, you simply pick up the yarn at the beginning of each needle and work until you come to the next color.

Tips and tricks

No need to twist the stitches together: the different colors lay over one another, not next to one another

Consider using bobbins to avoid tangling

In theory, you can make spirals of more colors by using more needles. In practice, the steepness of the spiral and the tangling of the running yarns makes 4-5 colors the utmost practical limit, and really, two or three colors will prove challenging enough.
For a fabric with a single contrast color stripe, say, white with every 4th row blue (photo below) here’s how: Prepare 3 white bobbins and one of blue, then knit the whole works off 4 needles, working around with a fifth. Knit each bobbin of white sequentially and individually, just as you would if using different colors.

Better transitions using a"transition needle"

The above instructions segregate each color to its own needle, and this is easy to understand (and illustrate!) However, in real life, having several bobbins hanging off at different place would lead to tangling. Also, always changing colors at the same spot might create ladders. Finally, dropping the yarn and picking up a new one at the end of every needle makes for a very choppy knitting rhythm--not restful at all. In order to avoid these problems, here is a trick--

Once the pattern is established, choose one needle to be the “transition needle.” Knit each color almost all the way around the round, stopping three stitches from the previous color, on the "transition needle."

In the above illustration, the blue stripe has just been finished three stitches from the end of the previous white round. Similarly, the white round finished three stitches from the red round, and the red, three stitches from the previous blue round. Now find the running yarn “lowest down and furthest out,” here, the red yarn picked out with the green arrow. Drop the blue running yarn to the front of the work, then slip the intervening stitches (black arrows) from left needle to right, purlwise (not twisted).

The above illustration shows the six marked stitches as they have been slipped onto the right needle. This frees the "lowest down and furthest out" yarn--the red running yarn--so you can knit the next almost-complete round with it.
You would now knit with the red yarn, stopping three stitches from the end of the blue round. After knitting the red yarn, the next following round would be a white round, to be knitted with the white running yarn picked out by the green arrow in illustration 7.
This transition shortcut works on magic loop and circular needles, also.
Because the stopping point of the yarn is always moving backwards in your knitting, you avoid the ladders which would form if you always switched at the same spot, and you avoid the need for markers in magic loop or circular knitting. Of course, with dpn’s, you will have to re-arrange the stitches by slipping them around on your needles every few rounds in order to keep a roughly even number on each, but this is all to the good, as it also helps avoid ladders.
As you can see from the comments, some knitters do not stop short, but knit all the way around to the very stitch where the previous yarn ended. When I try that, I get tension strangeness, but knitting is SO different in different hands, so experiment: try stopping short as illustrated, but maybe also try knitting each round to the bitter end, and see which way works better for you!
When you end the work, space the colors out again as you did at cast on (one color per needle, lined up over the original round) so that the bind-off matches.

* * *

This is part 2 of a TECHknitting series on jogless stripes, based on an article which originally appeared in "Beyond the Basics," Interweave Knitting Magazine, Summer '09

The first post in this series, which features a video of various stripes, including barberpole stripes, is here.

If you would like to see a different blogger's take on barberpole stripes, have a look at Grumperina's posts on the subject featuring, among other things, a pair of helical-knit socks.

Good knitting--TK

Article and video on jogless stripes, part 1 of a series

2011-02-27T15:10:00.004-06:00

Circular knitting, as you know, is actually a spiral. Therefore, if you change colors to make stripes, the knitting will "jog."

Jogging stripes

A couple of years ago, in the summer 2009 issue of Interweave Knits, there was an illustrated article by TECHknitter (that's me!) about avoiding this problem with two different kinds of jogless stripes:

barber pole (helix)
slip stitch jogless (two variations)

Under the contract signed with Interweave Knits, the copyright reverted to this blog after a time. TECHknitting blog is now free to re-publish the article as it was originally written and illustrated for submission. However, the article was rather long, so it will be run as three separate posts.

Today's intro installment contains two things:
First, here's a link to a previous post in TECHknitting blog covering the slip stitch variations. This post contains everything about the slip-stitch jogless method which was found in the Interweave Knits article--only the illustrations are different.

Second, here is a link to a video done by Interweave Knits' editor Eunny Jang, showing how the TECHknitting jogless stripes are done. The video covers one of the slip stitch variations (stationary style jogless stripes), as well as the helix (barber pole) jogless stripes. Unlike later videos done by IK, this one does not mention then (then-concurrent) TECHknitting article, but it IS based on the article--the techniques are identical. I think Eunny does a great job of showing the techniques (and even if you already know how to make these stripes, the video is worth watching to see how incredibly fast Eunny knits, and using a unique style, too).

The next post in this series contains that part of the IK article relating to barberpole (helix) stripes. This is all-new material for TECHknitting blog because there has never been a post on barber-pole stripes before. Helix stripes can be made as narrow as a single round, and are therefore very useful for narrow jogless stripes. (Click here to be taken to the second post.)

The third post in the series will contain that part of the IK article relating to slip-stitch jogless stripes--the material which is identical to the previous TECHknitting post mentioned above. The only reason to reprise this material is the different illustrations. In other words, although the previous TECHknitting post on jogless stripes and the third part in this series are to cover the identical ground, yet each has different illustrations, and sometimes a new and different illustration is capable of shedding new light.

* * *

This is the first post in a series: the second post is: Helix (Barberpole) stripes.

* * *

-TK

Socks falling down? Consider elastic

2011-02-15T22:12:00.006-06:00

Socks won't stay up? You're not alone. Socks are a very popular item to knit but recurrent discussions on Internet knitting forums show falling-down socks are a problem to many.

There are many, many ways to solve this problem, but one of the most direct is elastic. Here are four different methods.

Elastic garters inside the sock

TECHknitting blog has already shown how to make knitted hems, both sewn shut and knitted shut. If you create one of these hems at the top of a sock, you can insert an elastic garter into the hem, thus turning the hem into a "casing" ("casing" = a fancy word for a hem which is encasing something: a hem with something inside of it).

wear the garter around
the house for a while

A few tips:

Make the garter out of non-roll elastic because if it gets twisted inside the casing, you'll have a hard time straightening it. I use 3/4 inch wide non-roll, but some prefer one-inch wide.
There are various weights and strengths of non-roll elastics--try to feel of them before you buy because some are quite thick and stiff.
Make up the garter by cutting the elastic longer than you think, then pin or tack it down (tack = sew quickly with a couple of big stitches) into a circle of approximately the same diameter as your leg, sock-top-high. Leave some overlap so you can adjust as needed. WEAR the pinned/tacked garter around the house for a while, trying it on both legs before you sew it down permanently. (Elastic garters need not be very tight to do their work--your underwear elastic doesn't bite into your flesh and neither does the elastic on store-bought socks, yet they both work.) By wearing the garter around for a while, you can adjust it until it is as loose as possible while still doing its job. Also, remember--it will be slightly tighter inside the casing than around your bare leg, since it has to stretch slightly further.
You can insert the garter into its casing at the sock top either by sewing the casing shut over the elastic as the last step in finishing the sock, or--for a top-down sock--knitting the casing shut as-you-go with the garter trapped inside.
Elastic can loose its oomph long before a handknit sock wears out, so if you do sew the casing shut, use a contrasting color yarn--that'll make it easy to snip and resew a new garter in.
An elastic garter sewn into a casing often makes the sock top stand out because the unstretched garter is larger than the unstretched sock top, but when you put the sock on, all will be well.

...the sock top stands out because the
unstretched garter is wider than the
unstretched sock...

...but when you put it on
all will be well

Thread elastic added afterwards

Another method to make your socks stay up is to use thread elastic, threading this onto a needle and working this around and around the inside of the sock ribbing in a spiral. The easiest way I know is to catch the elastic under ONE arm of a knit column on the inside. This is a (receding) purl column on the front of the sock, which helps hide the elastic. Don't over-tension the elastic as you sew it in. In fact, don't tension it much, if at all--the inside of a sock is a lot smaller than the outside of your leg, so an elastic worked into a sock top must have enough slack to stretch as the sock does.

thread elastic worked into the ribbing at the top of a sock

Working thread elastic into sock ribbing is an good solution for already-made socks. The only drawback to thread elastic is that it doesn't last very long--a few years at most, whereas a hand-knit sock might last many times that. However, it is no great chore to snip out the old elastic and insert new.

Knitting in elastic as-you-go

It is also possible to knit in elastic as you go. This trick is possible with thread elastic, but, unless the thread elastic is the same color as your yarn, there is the possibility of the elastic peeping out when you wear the socks. Plus, you know, thread elastic loses its oomph pretty quick. A better sort of elastic to knit in is a European product called "knitting elastic" which is invisible. (And that's why there's no illustration--it is literally hard to see this stuff even when it's in your hand.)

The trouble with knitting in elastic is knowing how strongly to tension it as you knit. Start by tensioning as little as possible, rather than trying to stretch it as you knit, then tighten up from there if that's unsatisfactory. I haven't used the knitting elastic product very extensively and so don't know how long it is likely to last. If you have more experience, maybe sing out in the comments? I will say that the stuff has amazing stretch and feels very sturdy, at least when it is new. It also washes up OK, but I haven't yet tried it in a dryer.

Elastic garters worn outside the sock

The first three methods of adding elastic all work on the inside of the sock. However, traditionally, it was understood that socks and stockings were likely to fall down, and that's why many ethnic and historical costumes include socks and stockings held up with garters worn OUTSIDE the sock. (aaand, for history buffs, these garters were traditionally knitted in garter stitch,which is why...)

My maternal grandparents (born 1896 and 1902, respectively) wore ordinary business attire, not ethnic costume, but they did keep their socks up with elastic sock garters every day of their lives--grandpa used the men's version, grandma used an elastic garter at the top of each thigh-high nylon. Retro-style garters like this are still for sale on-line, and the men's version has always remained part of a formal-wear outfit.

The cheapest modern equivalent to outside garters are rubber bands. Snap one around each sock top, flip the ribbing down, and you're out the door.

For a better-fitting version, you can make custom elastic garters, as in the first part of this post. However, because these are now meant to be worn outside the sock, under the flip of the ribbing, use narrower elastic. There is no need to use non-roll elastic either, since you can easily reach the elastic to straighten it. One pair of custom garters will work for all socks of the same length--a time saver over knitting a pair of garters into each pair of socks: easier and less clunky, too.

If you do opt to make elastic garters, you can gussie these up by sewing a ribbon onto the garter, arranged such that the ribbon peeks out from under the folded-down sock top. This trick makes it look as if the ribbon itself is holding up the sock, while the elastic remains hidden. These little ribbon ends are called "garter flashes" and they can also be made out of woolen fabric--particularly for wear with kilt hose.

ribbon-end garter flashes

(We'll end with a link to a handsome fellow wearing kilt hose held up with garters showing garter flashes. Remember to look at his socks, OK?)

Good knitting, TK
You have been reading TECHknitting blog on what to do if your socks fall down.

Linky for KD readers (Fixing errors at the side edges of your knitting)

2011-02-11T11:25:00.004-06:00

Here is a handy link for readers coming from Kathleen Cubley's dropped-edge-stitch article in Interweave Knit's web site, Knitting Daily. Kathleen's article covers the ground admirably, while this link takes you to a TECHknitting article about the same problem, which offers a similar, yet not identical slant on the how-to of fixing these kinds of errors.

These sorts of dropped stitches at the edge are quite terrifying looking, no?

(And the reverse is true too--if you've already read TECHknitting's article on this subject, go on over to Kathleen's article to see a different illustrated take on fixing this same error).

Good knitting--TK

Horizontal fold lines in knitting, part 2: purl sides out, knit sides in the fold

2011-02-10T06:30:00.001-06:00

As shown in the previous post, it is easy to make a stockinette fabric fold along a horizontal line so the smooth knit side of the fabric is out and the purl sides of the fabric (the reverse stockinette) are trapped inside the fold. This is done by simply making a row or round of purls on the smooth stockinette face of the fabric, and voila: the stockinette then folds smoothly at the purl line, smooth knit side out; bumpy purl sides, back-to-back, inside the fold.

As strong as this structure of this fold is, however, no immediately obvious counterpart exists to make a fold line on the purl side, so that the bumpy purl sides face out and the knit sides are trapped, back-to-back, inside the fold.

Here is a little "unvention," the result of fooling around over a couple of years, which I believe does fit the bill. It is WORKED from the smooth (knit) side but, when FINISHED, causes the fabric to fold so the purl (reverse stockinette) fabric faces out while the knit side of the fabric is trapped inside the fold.

Step 1: On the stockinette fabric, with the smooth (knit) side facing you, locate the stitch TAIL, illustrated in RED, below.

Step 1

Step 2: Draw the tail up and place it, right arm forward, on the tip of the left needle.

Step 2

Step 3:Insert the right needle tip into the next ordinary stitch on the left needle (illustrated in dark green), then into the loop made by the tail (red), as shown below. Knit the two loops together from this position using the running yarn which is shown in lighter green.

Step 3

Step 4: The final result will be an assembly of two loops worked together, looking remarkably like a k2tog (Knit 2 together). If you look at the below illustration and all the previous ones, there are several stitches already worked according to this trick, with the tail-loops being illustrated in pink, the main stitch in green and the running yarn in lighter green. The upcoming tails to be worked in this trick are also illustrated in pink.

Step 4

Here is a photo of the finished product, as seen from the purl side, with the fold line at the bottom of the photo.

The finished result

I think it makes a pretty nice fold, especially for a purl fabric. Try it, and see what you think!

* * *

A big thank you! to the three test knitters: Anonymous (you know who you are!) Christina and Tatterbat, not only for trying this out but thanks, too for your ideas: one test knitter plans to use this for the hem of a reverse stockinette sweater, and another mentioned a set of square baby blocks--some to be made knit-side-out, using the ordinary purl-on-stockinette fold of the previous post, some to be made purl-side-out using this new technique.

Good knitting! --TK

Horizontal fold lines in knitting, part 1: knit sides out, purl sides in the fold

2011-02-08T11:31:00.006-06:00

Just as the universe folds and twists in accordance with laws of interest to physicists, so knitting curls and folds in accordance with laws of interest to handknitters. For example, the tendency of stockinette to curl purl side out is well-known and many excellent knitting designs take this into account, working with the roll, rather than going all out to conquer it. Perhaps less well-known is an equally strong force of knitting, which can equally add a structural design element: the tendency of stockinette to fold along a purled row.

purl-line on the knit face of stockinette, unfolded (left) and folded (right)

Specifically, when you want knitting to fold back on itself along the row-line, such as at a hem or cuff, it's easy to make the fabric fold sharply by running a row of purl on a stockinette background. This strongly forces a stockinette fabric to fold in half with the knit sides out while the purl sides are trapped in the fold, back-to-back, as shown in the photo above.

HOW-TO

flat knitting

If knitting stockinette back and forth, you simply knit on the purl side for one row, then return to pattern. This means that you will work 3 rows of knit successively and the center of these three--the one that looks like a purl line, but is located on the smooth knit side of the fabric--will be the fold line.

circular knitting

If you are working in the round, it's a little different. As you know, when knitting stockinette circularly you're always working on the knit side, so you'll simply purl a single round to get the same effect.

This is all very simple, but there is one little wrinkle to getting a neat fold line when knitting circularly. As you know, however, knitting in the round creates a spiral. This means that the beginning of each round is stacked above and one stitch over from the end of the previous round. In the context of a fold line, this means that the beginning and end of the purl round "jog," they won't line up because they aren't actually in the same round at all. The discontinuous purl line is highlighted in pink in the photo below.

discontinuous purl line "jog" when worked in the round

To avoid this "jog," use the same trick as for avoiding color jogs:

work the entire purl round as usual.
on the next round, where you would set off knitting in the ordinary course of things, simply SLIP the FIRST purl stitch you worked instead. In other words, at the end of the purl round, instead of working a knit stitch as the first stitch of the next (knit) round, simply slip the next stitch on your needle INSTEAD of knitting it.
All further rounds are worked normally, and this is the only stitch slipped.

This slipping trick drags up some stitches and squishes others, aligning the beginning and end of the purl round, and essentially eliminating the jog. As seen in the photo below, the resulting purl line, highlighted in pink, is waaay better than the jogging line of purl in the photo above.

discontinuous "jog" alleviated by slip-stitch method above

In sum so far: the introduction of a purl row/round on a stockinette ground will cause the fabric to to fold very sharply along the purl row, knit side out and with the purl side of the fabric trapped inside the fold.

VARIATIONS ON A THEME

As with many things knitting, there are some neat variations.

beefier fold line

For a beefier thicker fold very suitable to utility wear, consider a double purl-line fold. Although this looks like (and is!) the surface decoration called "welting" when seen on unfolded stockinette, if you fold the fabric at this welt-line you will find you've created a thick, pleasant, sturdy edge--much more substantial than a single purl-line fold line, and very suitable to outerwear or rough use or heavy yarns.

beefier double purl-line (aka "welting"), unfolded (left) and folded (right)

contrast-colored fold line, method 1

There are two ways to make a contrast colored fold line, a gold fold line on a green fabric, for example. The classic method is done in three steps:

On the row or round BEFORE where the fold is wanted, work a row or round in contrast color, but keep to your stockinette pattern (knit if in the round, purl if working back and forth)
On the row or round where the fold is wanted, return to the main color and purl
On all following rows/rounds, return to the ordinary pattern of the stockinette fabric

contrast-colored method 1, unfolded (left) and folded (right)

When folded, this single line of contrast color yields a fold with a pleasant "stitched" sort of appearance--the main color (green) shows in little dots below the gold contrast color fold, per the above illustration.

contrast-colored fold line, method 2

For a more consistent-colored fold line (no "stitched" appearance) two rows or rounds are worked in the contrast color, as follows:

On the row or round BEFORE where the fold is wanted, work a row or round in contrast color, but keep to your stockinette pattern (knit if in the round, purl if working back and forth)
On the row where the fold is wanted, remain in the contrast color and purl a row or round
On all following rows or rounds, return to the main color, and work in the ordinary pattern of the stockinette fabric

contrast colored method 2, unfolded (left) and folded (right)

Note--although two lines of contrast color have been worked, this is nonetheless a single purl-line fold, because only one row has been purled. If you wanted to combine the beefy double-purl line fold with the contrasting color trick, you'd have to work THREE lines of color and two lines of purl.

* * *

This is the first post in a two part series about horizontal folds in knitting. The next post will be about getting stockinette fabric to fold the other way, so that the PURL (reverse stockinette) sides are out, with the KNIT sides trapped in the fold, back-to-back.

Until then, good knitting
--TK
PS: Why yes, I am from Wisconsin. Did my green and gold color scheme give it away?

Circular swatches knit flat (back and forth on two needles)

2011-02-04T16:35:00.002-06:00

Here are a couple of tricks to make swatching circular knitting easier. No longer do you have to make a hat to test your gauge for that new seamless sweater, or knit half a sock before discovering you're really making a mitten for your favorite kid.

Today's little tricks let you test your CIRCULAR gauge on a piece of FLAT knitting. One of these tricks has been shown on TECHknitting blog before, although rather hidden, but the other trick is making a first appearance here.

Why tricks are necessary

A swatch cannot normally be knit flat to test the gauge of a circular-knit object. This is because creating stockinette fabric in the round involves nothing-but-knit, whereas creating stockinette fabric knit flat involves knitting-there-and-purling-back. If, like most knitters, you purl and knit at different tensions, the result of flat-for-circular substitution is a lying gauge swatch.

All knitters know that swatches are dishonest two-timing, bald-faced liars in the best of times, so a substitute swatch is only going to make matters worse. Yet, nothing-but-knit worked flat (back and forth) yields garter stitch, not stockinette. So, the issue is, how to create a flat swatch in nothing-but-knit yet still produce stockinette fabric?

Trick 1: "Half-loop" method

This is the trick which was shown on TECHknitting once before, a long time ago (complete with an old-school black and white illustration!)

Here's how in 5 steps:

1. cast a bunch of stitches on to double pointed or circular needles.
2. knit a row
3. to knit the next following row, slide the whole swatch to the opposite needle point
4. bring the running (working) yarn back to the starting edge by forming a big sloppy loop across the back of the work, then knit the next row
5. keep repeating steps 3 and 4 over and over again until you get a swatch large enough to measure.

Because you bring the yarn back to the row-start via a large loop on the back, rather than via purling, you're creating a swatch of nothing-but-knit AND working stockinette fabric at the same time.

In fact, you are creating a series of giant loops. You're working the first half of the loop (the knit part) then closing the loop by drawing the un-knit second half of the loop behind the swatch, from left to right. Because you're only knitting half the loop, this is called the "half-loop" method.

Half-loop is a nice trick, yes, and I made circular swatches this way for years. However, over time, this method became crazy-making: the sloppy loops across the back make it hard to lay the darn thing flat to measure it; the SUPER-loose edges affect the gauge a long way into the swatch; and it's really hard to keep messy swatches like this hanging about--laborious to knot off the edges for re-purposing as pot holders, hard to keep intact for future measuring purposes.

"There has to be a better way," was my constant thought every time one of these loopy messes was laid out to be measured, and ... lo, after a while, a better way did reveal itself.

Trick 2: "Whole-loop" method

The essence of this trick is to knit the whole loop, both halves of it, rather than drawing one half of it, unknit, behind the swatch. Here's how in 8 steps and three illustrations:

1. cast on to double pointed or circular needles, as many stitches as you think your gauge swatch ought to have
2. knit a row. Mark the end of the row with a pin then tink (tink=unravel, stitch by stitch) back. Note how long this stretch of yarn is--easiest to measure it against an outstretched arm, a local sofa-back or something equally solid and informal -- a yardstick or tape measure would be not only wobbly but also time-consuming.
3. now, reknit this measured length of yarn (side note: you ought to come out where the pin was placed originally. If you don't, this is a sign of inconsistent tension from row to row, and something to maybe spend some time working on, swatch-wise)
4. slide the swatch back to the right side of the dpn or circular needle
5. draw out a new measured length of yarn (ie: a piece of yarn the same length as the one originally measured). In the illustration, the measured yarn is colored red and the end of it is marked with a blue "x." Note also that the yarn PAST the blue "x," the yarn which is running back to the ball, is colored purple.

6. Starting at the beginning of the RED MEASURED LENGTH, knit a single stitch, as below.

7. for the rest of the row, work with the RED MEASURED LENGTH and note that you are NOT knitting with the purple yarn which runs back to the ball. In other words, the blue "x" marking the transition remains parked at the side of the swatch, never moving and the purple yarn remains untouched, while the red loop gets smaller and smaller with each stitch.

8. The last few stitches will take some fancy maneuvering because you can't tension them as usual off your finger due to the ever-shrinking size of the red loop. However, since the yarn was measured, you KNOW you have enough yardage to finish the row, and will manage somehow!

This "whole loop" trick has several advantages: without the unknit back half of each loop coiled up behind the swatch, the swatch lays out smooth at measuring time; if you keep your gauge swatches, you'll easily be able to re-measure these nice, tidy swatches in the future; and you'll eventually be able to re-purpose these nice neat squares as potholders or patches for a quilt top or cushion cover.

One last note: In a recent Ravelry discussion of this exact trick, a comment was posted, wondering whether knitting an ever-tightening loop wouldn't distort the left edge. The answer is that yes, the left edge will be distorted.

Buuut...this doesn't matter very much, because ALL the edges are distorted.

See, even if you have perfect tension, like from a knitting machine, the tension at every edge of any piece of knitting is always distorted, due to the structure of the knitting itself. TECHknitting blog has a whole illustrated post about WHY edge stitches are always wonky, but if you don't feel like reading all that, take it on faith, and stay at least an inch (or better, inch-and-a-half) away from EVERY edge--left, right, top and bottom--when measuring a swatch for gauge.

Good knitting! --TK

Men's sweaters: E-Z adjustments for better fitting garments

2011-02-01T13:31:00.009-06:00

Poking around Ravelry the other day, I found a thread where a bunch of fellows were wishing for sweaters which fit better than standard "cylinder" sweaters--they want to show off their manly figures in better-fitting garments.

Yowza! OK! I'm ALL for that, so here are two super-quick informal methods to adjust any "stockinette cylinder" sweater for the rising "v" shape evidently at issue. (Naturally, these methods will also work for anyone, male or female, with a chest significantly greater than their waist, but this particular post is pitched towards the fellows who got me started thinking about all this in the first place.)

METHOD 1: Graduated needle size

Here's a handsome fellow in his graduated needle size jersey--4 different needle sizes were used to knit the scrap of fabric laying under this sketch of a body-builder and you can see the difference in gauge as the fabric climbs the rising V shape of this imaginary fellow's torso.

graduated needle size method

Here's how: Start by closely examining the sweater pattern schematic: you are looking for a sweater which will fit around the chest at the nipple line with the amount of ease deemed appropriate. Make up your gauge swatch until you get the stitch count for the fabric called for the pattern. (The nipple line is used because for many men's bodies, this represents the widest part of the chest, so this is the point of departure for garment chest measurements.)

For a standard stockinette-cylinder bottom-up sweater, start the sweater body with waste yarn--knit a few rows or rounds with yarn of the same weight as the sweater to be knit. The best waste yarns are acrylic or cotton, because these are easy to remove. You'll go back and take out the waste yarn at the end, working the bottom ribbing last. (When the ribbing is worked last, you can try the garment on, allowing you to perfectly adjust the length and bottom circumference of the ribbing in real time, rather than worrying about these measurements at the outset, when you really don't know how the garment is going to fit.)

In any event, after the waste knitting, commence to knit the sweater body with needles TWO sizes smaller than the ones needed to get gauge. Work until the garment reaches the lowest rib bone. Switch to needles 1 size smaller than those needed to get gauge (which would be one size larger than those used so far). Work until the garment reaches about the third rib bone (this might be a short-ish rise, that's OK--this short stretch is in the nature of a transition zone). Switch to the needles used to get gauge and work further. If the shoulders are in proportion to the chest, you can stay with these needles all the way up the rest of the garment. If the shoulders are not in proportion, but larger, then switch to one size larger needles 1/2 way up the armhole.

The sleeves are similarly started on needles two smaller, switched to 1 smaller partway up the forearm (how far up depends on the forearm development) then to the size used to get gauge somewhere around the elbow--again, this depends on the degree of arm development. For a disproportionately larger upper arm, switch to needles 1 larger just before the bicep bulge, otherwise, work to the top of the sleeve in the needles used to get gauge. Obviously, if making the garment in the round, it is easy to match the graduation in needle size, but if making up in pieces, be sure to take a note on which rows the change occurs, or you will have trouble matching up the pieces when sewing-up time comes, and there will be puckering and flaring.)

To nail down the needle changes with an example: suppose the sweater pattern you choose requires a gauge of 5 st/in at the chest. You would find which size needles you need to get this gauge--say for the sake or argument, a size 6. You would then knit the bottom of the sweater on size 4, switch to size 5 where the chest begins to flare--the bottom of the ribs, switch again to size 6 just before the nipple-line, at about the third rib up from the bottom. Stay with the size 6 all the way up, unless you need to accommodate some massive shoulders, in which case, switch to a size 7 halfway up the armhole.

Naturally, graduated needle size comprises an informal approach, and one which may not work on the most heroic figures--despite my strongman sketch-models, actual weight lifters and body builders are probably best advised to get out pencil and paper and do the actual math to figure a rising gauge, as well as actually adding to the stitch count. However, experience demonstrates that simply graduating the needle size does work for everyday body variations: many women have the identical problem, only just turned upside-down ("^" instead of "v") and this approach has successfully been part of my informal bag o'tricks for a long time--my oldest is 21, so these adjustments have been in use around here for a couple of decades, at least!

Method 2: ribbing

This handsome fellow sports a jersey knit in a 2x1 rib (k2, p1) and you can see how the ribbing stretches as it climbs the rising V shape of his body-builder torso.

Ribbing method

This method has the potential to be even easier than graduated needle size. For this trick you simply work a standard stockinette "cylinder" sweater as instructed in the pattern, with the only change being the switch to ribbing, allowing the clinginess inherent in the fabric to overcome the sagging and bagging which would otherwise occur. For a sweater which fits around the chest in stockinette, a ribbed fabric will cause the garment to have a moderate amount of negative ease.

A 1x1 ribbing requires the least modification--being a multiple of 2+1 (ie: any odd number), the only change to the stitch count might be the addition or subtraction of a single stitch. Wider ribbings, such as 2x2 (a multiple of 4+2) or 3x1 (multiple of 4+3) and so on, take more adjustment to the initial stitch count.

Combo approach

The same needles were used to knit the entire ribbed scrap underlying the second sketch, with the nature of the ribbing itself providing the stretch. However, there is nothing to stop you from COMBINING these methods--using graduated needle size PLUS ribbing to get a really "v" shaped sweater.

A note on yarns

For the graduated method, experience shows that lofty woolen yarns work best. A very tight twist could look stringy at the largest gauge while feeling stiff at the smallest gauge, but a loftier yarn takes the gauge change without either effect being particularly noticeable.

Good knitting!

--TK

Avoiding yarn twist--why does it matter?

2011-01-27T16:13:00.000-06:00

The two most recent posts touched on yarn twist and how to avoid it. However, in a surprising twist (har!) an important point was overlooked. As MB wrote in the comments: "There's one detail I don't understand yet--why does it matter if the yarn twists?"

What a great question!

Yarn, of course, is twisted in its very nature--that's how it's made. Specifically, yarn involves imparting twist to overlapping lengths of raw fiber--the twist holds the fibers in place. In other words, yarn is twisted out of raw fiber--no twist, no yarn. The problem is therefore not twist itself, but too MUCH twist--overtwist as it is sometimes called.

Spinners, both hand- and commercial- have come up with clever, clever ways of restraining the power of the twist to the yarn itself, so that the twist does not cause problems in the finished fabric. Yarn made of several plies (i.e., twisted, then countertwisted) is one familiar example. However, sometimes these spinning strategies do not succeed, or sometimes we knitters inadvertently add excess twist to yarn by winding and re-winding yarn, center-pulling each time.

The most obvious announcement of overtwisted yarn is when the yarn itself humps up, twisting and writhing in the stretch between the skein of yarn and the knitting.

overspun yarn twisting and writhing

This sort of overtwisted yarn is usually dealt with by stopping every so often and letting the project dangle, slowly turning and turning, to rid the excess twist.

Although this sort of overtwisted yarn is annoying, at least you know what you have and can take steps. More often, overtwist is sneakier than this. The yarn is overtwisted, yes, but not enough to announce itself in the yarn. Instead, this sneaky kind of overtwist announces itself first when the finished fabric biases (slants).

biased knitted fabric

Biased fabric is actually all-too-common. Commercially knit garments often suffer this problem, and it is most obvious when you see sweater seams not hanging straight, but instead, spiraling around the torso of the wearer. Sometimes, not only do the seams spiral, but the entire garment is biased ("racked") also. Hand knit garments, sadly, can also suffer this problem.

biased ("racked") garment with spiraling seams

It may happen that the yarn itself is overtwisted when bought, a sad state of affairs. However, we can at least avoid ADDING to the problem, and that is why it pays to take whatever steps possible to avoid creating additional, excess yarn twist. The previous post indicates how to do this: smoothly unspooling yarn from the outside of the skein or cake into which it is wound.

(PS: Since the last post, I found a demo of a neat-o gadget which helps with smooth unspooling: a "yarn susan." The demo at the link does not mention the twist issue, but does clearly show what unspooling smoothly from the outside of a skein ought to look like.)

--TK

You have been reading TECHknitting blog on "avoiding twisted yarn--why does it matter?"

Ball winders, part 2: avoiding yarn twist

2011-01-18T15:41:00.003-06:00

In the immediately previous post, TECHknitting blog showed many uses for a ball winder. "Sometimes," said I, "it is necessary to wind and re-wind yarn three and even four times to get long-color repeat yarns to lay as they should." (Said not so succinctly, but that was the gist.)

Several alert and knowledgeable readers wrote in to comment that I had better watch out--all that winding and re-winding would impart a twist to my yarn, a twist I might live to regret. "Perhaps you should not wind and re-wind quite so freely" was the consensus.

My education has included lab classes to learn firsthand the value of experimentation, yes sir, so I determined to get to the bottom of this scientifically. Here's my lab report.
_______________________________________________
LAB REPORT on TWIST in YARN
due to WINDING YARN
on a BALL WINDER
by TECHknitter
January 18, 2011

QUESTION TO BE ANSWERED

Does winding on a ball winder cause yarn to twist?

ANSWER

It is possible to avoid imparting twist when winding and re-winding yarn on a ball winder.

TOOLS EMPLOYED

scotch tape (taken from where it usually lives, thus upsetting everyone here at chezTECH)
four tape measures, each with an inch side and a centimeter side
my trusty umbrella swift
the ball winder at the root of the matter

EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN

Step 1: The tape measures were scotch-taped together into a flat 4-yard long snake, all the inch marks on one face, all the cm marks on the other

Step 2: The 4-yard long tape was wound onto the umbrella swift, laying smoothly.

Step 3: the tape measure-snake was wound from the umbrella swift onto the ball winder.

RESULT

If the tape measure was smooth on the umbrella swift, it wound smoothly onto the ball winder. If the ball winder handle was turned one way, the inch side faced outward, if the handle was turned the other way, the cm side faced outward, but in neither case was any twist imparted to the "cake" of tape-measure on the ball winder. NO TWIST.

I'll say it again: If the yarn lay smooth on the umbrella swift, it didn't matter which way the handle was turned. There was NO TWIST in the flat tape.

However, now it gets interesting. As soon as the tape-measure was attempted to be CENTER-PULLED out of the cake into which the ball-winder had deposited it, there appeared the TWIST the commenters prophesized. In other words, there was twist, yes, the alert commenters were 100% correct.

However, lucky for me and my ball-winding ways, it wasn't the winding which caused the twist--it was center-pulling the resulting cake which twisted the tape.

"it is center pulling ... which twisted the tape."

But now it gets even MORE interesting. Pulling from the outside of the tape-measure cake also produced a twist UNLESS I took the trouble to turn the cake as I tried to "knit" the tape. Fastening the tape-measure (more scotch tape, yes) on a lazy susan (stolen from the kitchen) then pulling the tape-end resulted the lazy susan spinning around, and the tape coming off with a smooth un-spooling and NO TWIST.

CONCLUSION

There are two important consequences: first, when using the ball-winder to wind FROM a skein, the yarn being re-wound must not be center-pulled from the skein to the ball-winder, for that would twist the yarn. (This is a corollary of the fact that center-pulling from a cake twists yarn: the same would happen from a skein!) Instead, the yarn skein being re-wound must be unwound from the skein's outside.

Luckily for me, this I have almost always done, putting the skein into a deep basket from which it cannot jump when pulled. I might preen and say I unwound skeins from the outside on purpose, but that'd be lying: rewinding from the outside rather than center-pulling resulted from mere lazy disinclination to battle tangled skein innards (known, in strictly technical terms, as "yarn barf.")

The second important consequence is that yarn from cakes which is to be unwound for either knitting-up or further re-winding must be smoothly unspooled from the outside. Once again alert and clever commenters have come to the rescue, and two different solutions have been proposed:

a lazy-susan-type device with a spindle onto which the yarn cake is impaled, and which, smoothly spinning, unspools yarn from outside the cake when the outer yarn end is pulled OR
a toilet-paper holder or similar spindle onto which the cake--having first been wound onto a toilet-paper core--is placed to smoothly unspool the yarn from the outside of the cake

SUMMARY

IF you center-pull yarn from skeins or cakes, you will get twist. IF, however, you always unwind cakes or skeins from the outside, AND smoothly unspool caked yarn via a lazy susan or core-and-spindle, then winding and rewinding will NOT TWIST THE YARN.

In this manner, it is possible to make full use of a ball-winder as shown in the previous post, and all without imparting twist.
_______________________________________________
Well, that's the end of the lab report, and all's well that ends well.

Although now I come to think of it, "well" is a relative term. I still have to explain why the lazy-susan has migrated from the kitchen to sit by the ball-winder, and why the paper towel dispenser from the basement is upstairs wearing a yarn cake on a toilet-paper core. However, at least the scotch tape is back where it belongs, so that's a start, right?

* * *

A big thank you to the commenters on the previous post: Honnay, who first flagged the problem and Mercuria and Jennigma who explained further. (Talk about scary--they're all three engineers!) Many thanks also to GJabori who suggested the lazy susan, and June, who explained further, as well as suggesting the toilet paper core and spindle. Thanks for reading, thanks for commenting and good knitting!

--TK
You've been reading TECHknitting blog on: avoiding yarn twist when using a ball winder.

The ball winder--a useful tool, especially with long color repeat yarns

2011-01-17T05:00:00.012-06:00

Note--this is part 1 of a two part series on ball-winders. The second part, about imparting twist to yarn by winding, can be found here.

* * *

For many many years, there was no ball-winder at chezTECH. After all, most yarn comes in an orderly skein, and the occasional hanked yarn was not too hard to wind by hand. However, a few years ago, a ball-winder did sneak in here.

ball winder

At first, it was only used for hanked yarns, being taken down and put up for the occasional use. Over time the darn thing proved more and more useful, until now it is never put away because it's practically indispensable. Specifically, it has gradually become the practice around here to re-wind nearly all yarn before use. The more I do it, the more it saves my hide because rewinding finds trouble before the knitting starts.

Knots are easier to splice out during the rewinding process, rather than having one (inevitably) pop up in the middle of a complex lace or stitch repeat. For non-spliceable yarn, better to wind two separate balls. The coming end clearly announces itself so the join can be put at an inconspicuous place.
In rustic yarns, the bits of brush, dirt and other trash spun into the yarn show right away and can get picked out before the knitting starts.
Weak strands: even factory-standard yarns feature this problem from time to time, while some thick-and-thin yarns get SO thin in spots as to require editing.
Insect damage (ewwww)! Old woolen yarn from yard-sales, de-stashing swaps, store clearances always gets re-wound before letting it fraternize with existing stash ever since nasty wormies were found actually crawling around some garage-sale yarn.

When using long-color-repeat yarns, the ball winder is particularly useful.

Not all purchased skeins are wound in the same directions of repeat. Winding the skein using a ball winder reveals this instantly. By winding-off and then re-winding, it is possible to make all the yarn lay in the same direction.
Alternatively, sometimes the yarn ought to lay in the opposite directions. For example, the two cakes of yarn below each contain one entire repeat of all the colors in Kauni EQ (rainbow). Each is wound opposite to one another in preparation for knitting a symmetrical rectangular scarf. By starting at the outside of the left cake and ending at the inside of the right cake, the scarf will begin with a purple end, followed by a complete color repeat up one side, a blue middle where the last of the left ball is to be spliced to the first of the right ball, then a matching color repeat down the other side and the scarf will end as it began, in purple. (For an explanation of why the cakes will be knit in that order, click here.)

2 cakes of yarn, each containing a complete repeat of all colors
in rainbow Kauni (EQ) each wound opposite to one another

In very, very long repeats, such as the Kauni yarn above, it is scarcely possible to match up color repeats--repeats which are scattered over several different skeins-- without winding and splicing and re-winding, and sometimes, splicing and re-winding again--tedious to do by hand. To get these two complete color repeats required splicing parts of three different skeins together and three bouts of winding. Making them lay opposite required one cake to be rewound for a fourth time.
Some otherwise gorgeous long-color-repeat "art" yarns may contain colors which might be jarring, such as a stripe of black in a skein of pastel colors, or a color from a completely different colorway altogether. (Hello Noro, I'm talking to YOU!) Winding into a cake shows the whole color scheme in a glance, making it easy to "edit out" unwanted colors.
Worse, sometimes long-color-repeat yarns have colors missing, such as where two disparate colors are joined by a knot. Much better to find out before the knitting begins.

In a similar vein, when trying for identical twins from self-striping sock yarn put up in 50-gram skeins, the ball winder easily lets--

Yarns from the two different skeins lay in the same order.
Each sock start at the same color repeat.

Bottom line: if you don't have a ball-winder, it obviously doesn't mean you can't knit. Many fine knitters don't ever use them and I got along pretty well without one for, literally, decades. However if you DO have one, you may find it worthwhile to use it more regularly, and the more so for long-color-repeat yarns.

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This is part 1 of a two part series on ball-winders. The second part is about how to avoid imparting twist to your yarn as you wind and rewind it.
--TK
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A neat little edging for garter stitch

2011-01-14T12:47:00.014-06:00

Worked back and forth by knitting on every row, garter stitch makes the easiest-to-create of all hand knitted fabrics. However, where the edge is exposed, such as on a scarf or afghan edge, there is often trouble. There may be waving, ruffling, stretching. This trouble may announce itself at the time of knitting, as when an edge comes off the needles a bit loose and wavy, as shown below.

Garter stitch fabric, a bit loose and wavy, before edging

However, somewhat loose fabric is not the only situation where this trouble may arise. Even tight, well-executed garter stitch fabric may face this problem in the future, as it stretches into ruffles while it is worn.

Today's post shows an uber-easy edging which will cure existing garter-edge problems and prevent future ones.

Tight (back) and loose (front) garter stitch fabric, edged

This edging can be applied with a knitting needle, although it is easier to do it with a crochet hook, as illustrated. This technique is called "slip stitch" and creates a neat little chain around the garment. The chain constrains the edge. Once edged, the garter stitch fabric can stretch sufficiently to preserve the knitting's stretchy nature, but not so much as to permit ruffling.

As far as appearance, chain edging garter stitch offers a simple design element, suitable to all. Both MrTECH--that fashion-averse curmudgeon, and MsTECH--that teen fashion-setter, find this edging attractive--a rare case of agreement between these fashion-opposites.

Here's how, in 3 steps.

Step 1: Insert the crochet hook (or knitting needle) through the edge of the fabric. Take a note of just WHERE on the stitch you are inserting--as long as you insert into the same part of every stitch, you will get a pleasant, consistent edging. I think it looks best to insert a bit off the very edge, leaving a bit of the original garter edge showing above the chain as in the photos, but you must use your own judgment--some prefer the look of a chain right along the very edge of the fabric.

Once the hook (or needle) is through the fabric, catch the running yarn and draw up a loop. Now, go to the next stitch of your garter stitch fabric and again insert, catching the yarn on the hook or needle. The below illustration shows the hook inserted through the fabric, from front to back, catching the running yarn, and about to pull the second loop through the fabric edge--the first loop was pulled through the same manner.

Step 1

Step 2: The second loop has been drawn through the fabric. There are now two loops on the hook on the front face of the fabric.

Step 2

Step 3: The last step is to draw the second loop (the one more towards the business end of the hook/needle) THROUGH the first loop (the one more towards the handle).

As the steps are repeated and the just-pulled-through chain drawn through the one before it on the hook or needle, you will see a pleasant-looking chain forming along the edge of the garter stitch fabric. The chain only shows on the front face of the fabric--there is a neat "stitched" look on the back of the fabric.

The edge of the fabric will not ruffle and stretch when edged in this manner.

Step 3

Of course in this, as in all things, "use makes master" as the Latin saying goes. If your edging is coming out too tight or too loose, change needle or hook size (or pull more or less hard) until you get the "just right" tension you're looking for: firm but not unyielding. It's very easy to pull this edge out and re-do, so mess around until you like the tension --you'll know when you get there.

Happy knitting --TK
PS: There is a view of another edged garter stitch scarf--a quite tailored one, on Ravelry, if you click here. When you get there, click on the top photo, and then on the "+" sign on the photo, and you will get quite a closeup of the front and the back of this edging on the mustard-colored scarf at the link.

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Unkinking yarn before reuse--why it is a good idea

2011-01-04T09:30:00.004-06:00

A whole lot of test knitting goes on around chezTECH--for every idea which pans out, there are many (many.many.many) which don't. As a consequence, a whole lot of yarn gets recycled--unraveled, unkinked and reknit. TECHknitting blog has already shown HOW to unkink yarn, but I thought these photos might show WHY it's such a good idea.

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A hank of unraveled yarn before unkinking

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Before unkinking, closeup

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The same hank after unkinking

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After, closeup

The final step: the unkinked hank wound into a cake on a mechanical ball-winder:

Unkinked yarn in a cake

I believe you can see that this unkinked yarn will knit up so much better than the "before" ramen-noodle yarn.

Unkinking does add delay to the schedule, to allow the yarn to dry. However, wrapping the wet yarn in a thick towel and stomping on it removes an amazing amount of water. Cunningly spreading the hank on drying rack positioned over a radiator or hot-air heating vent can reduce the delay to an overnight, rather than 24 hours. In the summertime, spreading the hank on a drying rack in the shade on a breezy day has a similar speeding effect. (Don't dry yarn directly in the sun--it can become both coarse and faded.)

Best, TK
You have been reading TECHknitting blog on WHY to unkink yarn before reuse

Curling scarf rescue mission--part four: lining the scarf

2010-12-31T16:41:00.001-06:00

This TECHknitting series on curing curling stockinette scarves has looked at the problem, at solutions which don't work, and at two solutions which do work: drop-columns and transforming stockinette into ribbing.

poster child for stockinette curl

Today's poster child for curling is a multi-blue scarf. Although you can't tell in its wound-up state, this scarf has two tapered ends and an applied edging. Drop columns or forming ribbing would mean taking off, then reapplying the edging and unraveling, plus re-knitting one whole end--a LOT of work. Further, with no excess yarn in stash, re-knitting and re-edging is a doubtful proposition: every inch of un-picked and unraveled yarn would have to be in perfect shape after unkinking for this scarf to come back together. Very risky!

Of course, this isn't the only sort of scarf which cannot be fabric-reworked. Below are two other scarves-- a cheerful, beautifully-designed flower intarsia scarf and a lace scarf--which would be ruined by drop columns or ribbing. Luckily, however, all of these scarves have had their curl straightened by this post's solution: lining.

Stockinette curl cured with a polar fleece lining

LINING--materials

TECHknitting blog has already featured several tutorials for lining knitted garments--hats in headband style and in fully-lined style, mittens with side thumbs and front thumbs. The lining recommended in those posts is polar fleece--a wonderful fabric which does not unravel when cut, so no hemming is required. Also, polar fleece stretches--highly compatible with a stretchy fabric like knitting. However, polar fleece is not suitable to lace in style or elegance. Therefore, this post also shows a lace scarf lined in silk.

LINING--how to

Here's how the multi-blue scarf was lined. The first step was to steam-block the scarf. This made it lay as flat as possible. The scarf was then pinned to a big piece of cardboard to be measured--the pinning was necessary because measuring a scroll is impossible. The lining material was cut a bit big, and then sewn in, turning a tiny bit of the fabric under as the sewing went along. The work was done using ordinary polyester sewing thread and the overcast stitch. The fuzz on polar fleece rises up to hide the stitches, so if your sewing is not technically polished, no problem--the sewing is really truly invisible on the finished project.

Unlike the little stitches illustrated in the post on overcast stitches, the stitches on the multi-blue scarf are rather large: one sewing stitch per each knitting stitch of the edging. The thread was used doubled, and the needle was inserted between the yarn plies of the innermost line of edging stitches. It would be possible to simply insert the thread under one arm of the knitting stitch, as well--whether to take the sewing needle through the plies of each knit stitch or under one whole strand of each knit stitch is a matter of personal preference.

The colorful and cheerful intarsia scarf shown below was knit by Sandra Woods, (Passionateknittr on Ravelry) and the photos are used by her permission. (Many thanks, Sandra!)

Intarsia scarf before lining--all rolled up

The before and after shows that lining was really the only option here.

Intarsia scarf after lining with polar fleece

Further, the lining on an intarsia scarf does more than simply cure the roll. First, the floats on the back are hidden. Second, the many ends can be securely fastened without having to make the back pretty. Finally, the bright red color of the polar fleece lining adds a strong design element. A completely different effect would have been obtained, for example, by using a different color. This opens design possibilities. Matching scarves could be made for two sisters, say, of different temperament and personality. Each scarf could be identical in the knitted work but quite different in finished effect via different colored linings.

Cotton lace lined with silk

The cotton lace scarf to the left was lined with silk. Unlike polar fleece, silk is a woven fabric which must be hemmed after cutting and before being stitching in place on the scarf-back. I hemmed the silk by hand, folding the edge under twice and backstitching the hem in place. The hemmed silk lining was then overcast-stitched in place on the back of the cotton scarf, with the hem line on the inside, hidden forever against the purl face of the scarf being lined. As you can see, this scarf was lined in a contrasting color--orange china silk on a fuchsia scarf. (Polyester lining or poly-silks work, too!) Thus, the lining not only cured the stubborn curl, but added an strong design element. Other views of this scarf can be seen here. Addendum, 1-17-2011: Lisascenic on Ravelry has kindly allowed me to link to her silk lined scarf, on which the lining was sewed differently--sewed over the edge of the knitting, which gives a very interesting look, too, almost like a knit-lined silk scarf!

Of course, linings are not restricted to hand-knit masterpieces such as intarsia or lace: they work very well in utility situations also. On the last post, Fibercrafter-Sally left a comment about using a knitting machine to make simple stockinette scarves for charity. Stockinette rectangles could be made on a knitting machine, then cured of their curl by being lined with polar fleece. If the polar fleece lining were stretch-stitched on by sewing machine, these kind of machine-knitted scarves could be churned out by the dozen. Some nice effects could obtained by the contrast between the yarn and the linings (and think of the matching lined flip-brim hats which could be made...)

Summary

The series started with three curly scarves, and ended with three flat scarves.

Before--three curly scarves

After--cured of their curl, hanging

After--cured of their curl--closeup

After--cured of their curl, laying flat showing front and back

With best regards for a happy and healthy new year--TK

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This is part 4 of a four part series. The other posts are:
Curling scarf rescue mission, part 1: the problem and the solutions which don't work
Curling scarf rescue mission, part 2: the drop-column method
Curling scarf rescue mission, part 3: transforming stockinette into ribbing

Inserting no-sew zippers in knitwear--the video

2010-12-23T19:49:00.005-06:00

Here is an Interweave Knits video on a TECHknitting technique--how to insert no-sew zippers for knitwear using a "knitpicker," a tiny latch hook.

The video shows BOTH of the techniques illustrated in the Winter 2010 Interweave Knits article on zippers. Specifically, the chain method AND the live-loop method are demonstrated by Eunny Jang, the IK editor.

Using these tricks, an item can be STARTED from the zipper edge--TECHknitting blog just featured a 3-part KAL of a little zippered purse started from the zipper edge. Alternatively, the zipper can be added at the END of the project: once the zipper has been prepared by using the knitpicker either to make a chain OR to draw through live loops, the zipper becomes a knittable object--as easy to attach as seaming two pieces of knitting together, or attaching an I-cord edging to a sweater's button band.

I believe these tricks can make adding zippers to knitwear much easier than methods calling for sewing. I hope you will enjoy the video tutorial of both of these new methods--chain as well as live loop. --TK

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Addendum, December 26, 2010.

Valsew on Ravelry offers this very clever trick for those of you who have sewing machines. The idea is NOT to use the machine to sew with, but instead to use the sewing machine as a MARKING and PUNCHING tool along the edge of the zipper tape, as follows:

Why not use your sewing machine with a unthreaded topstitch needle for even hole spacing and prepunching, as well as a consistent distance from the edge of the zipper tape? You may match your knitting gauge by sewing on a piece of plain paper (again with no thread in the needle) and adjusting the stitch length until it matches your gauge.

Thanks, Val, for permission to re-print this valuable tip!

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